


My fairytale

by Kammyh



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Amnesia, Bank Robbery, Children of Earth Fix-It, Drama, Episode: s02e03 To the Last Man, Episode: s02e10 From Out of the Rain, Episode: s02e11 Adrift, F/M, Frames, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Naked Hide and Seek, Nostalgia, Not Beta Read, Pheromones, Porn Video, Romance, Sleeping beauty kiss, Torchwood One ex machina, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-10 04:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kammyh/pseuds/Kammyh
Summary: Life goes on and everything around Jack keeps changing, but some things are just supposed to be fixed in his life. Janto CoE Fix-it





	1. Lives left behind

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta-read and English’s not my native language, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue, bring Ianto back to Jack first. I’m taking inspiration for the chapters and the fiction titles from “Fairytale” by Kalafina, still no real stealing of the lyrics happened.

 

Gwen didn’t even stop looking at the screen of her computer when a cup of coffee was placed next to her. She simply grabbed it with her hands and took a tentative sip of the dark liquid. She grimaced, but she had to admit that it wasn’t as bad as she had expected.

“Thanks for the coffee, love. Have you changed blend again?”

Rhys frowned at her and crossed his arms over his chest, a resolute glint in his eyes. “I’m _sure_ it was the blend. It ‘as to be the blend, and one day I’m going to find out which one it was.”

Gwen tried to keep her smirk hidden behind her cup of coffee, but Jack had no such qualms and openly laughed at Rhys’s resolve.

“You might be right about the blend, but the day you will find the right one it still won’t be the same.” He drained his own cup of coffee and then descended the few remaining steps of the stairs that lead up to his renewed office to reach the pouting Welshman and pat him friendly on his shoulder. “Just try your best being yourself. Trying to emulate someone else won’t help much.”

“You should try and follow your own suggestions then, Jack.” Gwen teased, sounding actually like she was more serious than what she meant to give away. “What about the last girl you were seeing?”

Jack simply shrugged. “She wasn’t as good as I thought, I let her go.”

Gwen turned to stare up at him, this time looking completely serious. Rhys’s glance shifted from his wife to her boss worriedly, already sensing the reprimand coming forth.

“Jack-”

“C’mon Gwen, let me be.” Jack interrupter her, rolling his eyes annoyed. “She wasn’t what I was searching for and that’s it. It’s not like I gave up my love life forever. I simply wanted something more… reliable.”

“Some _one_ more reliable, maybe.” Gwen huffed irritated. “What you want is Ianto, not something ‘ _more reliable_ ’. Think about your relationship with Angelo or what was his name! You were just replying what you had with him, it was almost painful to watch!”

“Gwen, I adore you, but you’re not my mother and I don’t need you to play cupid for me.”

“Jack-”

“Aaaand I’ve got these to make me company tonight.” Jack chirped happily showing her a couple of tapes he had produced from his new navy blue coat. “So, come back telling me how I’m wasting my eternal life or my worthless time only when I’ve finished with these sweethearts and their siblings inside the two boxes in my office.”

Rhys stared confused at the seemingly anonymous tapes Jack was showing, but nothing on them or on their cover could help him guess their contents. “What the hell are they?” He asked confused.

“Jack? Where did you get those?” Gwen asked instead, having a slightly more definite idea of what those registrations might be about. She knew Jack and she knew Ianto, but more than that she knew that her friends were a couple of shameless exhibitionist despite Ianto’s shyness.

“Rhiannon kindly preserved them in the proper environment to keep them unharmed, and as soon as our names -mine and yours- got cleared by the authorities, she sweetly shipped them my way. Isn’t she a kind and attentive woman my dear sister-in-law?”

“Now, when did you marry Ianto and why would she keep them?” Gwen challenged him, crossing her arms on her chest and making herself even more comfortable on her chair.

“These were her brother’s, how could she have the strength to throw them away?” Jack explained with a pout and a bit too much drama in it, plainly ignoring the reminding that Rhiannon wasn’t actually his sister-in-law by law.

“Have you ever wondered if she'd watched them?”

The big lewd grin that appeared on Jack’s face told Gwen clearly that he was most certainly _hoping_ for Rhiannon to have done so, and that she'd enjoyed seeing them as much as he and Ianto had enjoyed filming them.

“What’s in there!?” Rhys took his chance to insist, feeling ignored, but he himself realized that getting an answer from the official Torchwood staff was a something near to a _Mission Impossible_ after they started bickering.

Gwen, however, eventually took pity on him and stood up, taking his arm and leading him straight towards the exit of their newly reconstructed hub.

“Keep your sight, Jack, you will need it” She said as a way to say goodbye, while next to her Rhys still didn’t understand what she was referring to and kept stealing glances in Jack’s direction, hoping to get the joke.

“I thought we were meant to help Jack with the exploding spikes” He protested.

Gwen simply rolled her eyes, whilst Jack kept grinning at them and wondered how much time would pass before Rhys stopped being oblivious and undestood the loads of hints they were casually offering for his analysis. He absolutely _needed_ to find a way to break the news to the naïve man.

“We’ll do it tomorrow, dear, now let’s go.” Gwen insisted, noticing Jack’s evil grin. “Anwen is waiting for us.”

She showed her husband through the cog door and then followed him herself.

“Have a nice family evening!” Jack chimed, weaving them goodbye. “ _Old_ and _single_ Jack will give himself _a hand!_  No need to _come_ early tomorrow morning!”

Despite the hint actually being extremely tiny, he could swear that a glint of understanding had eventually crossed Rhys’s eyes as the cog-door closed in front of the married couple. He bet that the Welshman’s head was going to be filled with weird images for the following hours: mission accomplished.

Now that he was alone, Jack turned again to look at the hub that had been given to him as a peace token from UNIT. It was way smaller than the one they had previously owned, but he knew that now they were supposed to do very few things in there, so it would suffice.

Gone was the rift, so gone was the rift manipulator along with the aliens and the weird objects it sputtered on Earth from the other galaxies. Gone was the need to have enormous archives to store alien tech, gone were the floors full of cells to held the captives and gone were the impromptu invasions of the Earth -at least for them. Gone was also the basement, but on a second thought they didn’t even know they had one at the beginning, so that didn’t really stand out as a big change.

They had become nothing more than a detachment of UNIT, focused mainly on surveillance. A mini-team that could blend easily for long term stalking or pointless unauthorised interviews. The only thing that was actually left of their previous routine was the care of the Flat Holm establishment, but that was mostly because only few people were supposed to know about its existence and these people weren’t on UNIT payroll.

Even if horribly mutilated, they had however got the chance to get back their work, their hub, their names and their freedom, so Jack didn’t feel the need to complain too much. If UNIT wanted the exclusive on getting mauled by alien invaders, they could happily take the main spot: he was already done with it. He’d nothing left to lose and very few things and dear ones to protect.

Jack, Gwen and Rhys’s names had eventually been cleared from every made-up accusation that had been thrown at them in their past, and now they all could finally live happily in the open air. They had the chance to start again their life. Once again, for the hundredth time, they could start again.

He only hoped that it was the last time they had to do such a thing.

Jack knew that for him this was impossible, but he really hoped at least to get a bit of tranquillity and steady routine for a while. His -and Gwen’s- main concern was his fleeting and still bleeding heart, but at least, for his most immediate needs, sweet and darling Rhiannon had recently come to his rescue with a slightly embarrassed expression on her face and two boxes of video-tapes, DVDs and flash drives.

Grinning evilly at the two tapes he was still holding in his hands, he rushed back up to his office to take advantage of his momentary time alone. He connected his computer to and old tape recorder and prepared himself for the show. He did not remember what it was inside each one of them, but he basked in the knowledge that if they had recorded it and then stocked in Ianto’s flat to preserve it from their curious colleagues, then it meant that the contents had to be good.

And as he stared at the images appearing on his monitor and prepared a new label with the proper content to put on the tape for future reference, he could only agree that videotaping that particular day had been a bloody good idea.

***H/S Revenge-tape4***

Ianto was finishing checking his camera for automatic recording, when a thoroughly aroused Jack run inside what appeared to be their old darkened projection room.

“Whoever said that it is always the quiet ones was onto something!” He said, breathing hard and glaring at him as he approached his lover, eventually becoming fully visible on screen.

“Well, you found me in the end" Ianto stated with mirth. "Congratulations.”

“Yeah, I found you and all your bloody cards and photos on the way!" Jack reprimanded him. "The others are still here, this goes way beyond professional, Mr Jones”

“Am I going to be punished?” Ianto asked, sounding more interested than frightened.

Jack’s lips were on the Welshman’s in a matter of seconds and his hands forego any teasing to move straight to Ianto’s crotch.

“Jack!” Ianto moaned in protest. “That’s not fair play… The cards…”

“Fair play my ass, I found you and I’m getting my prize.”

“Jack, where would it be the naked in the hide and seek game if you took me like… this!” Ianto was melting under Jack’s ministrations, moreover the love bites his lover was leaving on his neck were almost good enough to make him lose his resolve.

“As long as I get you naked in the end, I don’t care about the game in itself…” Jack protested, opening hastily the buttons of his lover’s suit… until he noticed the camera filming them.

“Ian? You took out the video-camera?”

“Uhn?” Ianto asked, looking at his lover rather dishevelled and out of sorts.

“The camera, Ian." Jack repeated once again. "Are you filming us? Will you upload it on youporn?”

His interested question was enough to get Ianto’s mind back from wherever it had gone. “What!? Why would I!?”

“Then why?” Jack asked again, looking like not only he didn't really understand what the problem would be but also like he was actually considering uploading it himself.

Ianto just grumbled embarrassed. “Why not? I thought the end of the game would be nice to put on tape.”

“Why should this be different from any other time?”

The Welshman rolled his eyes and took hastily the cards Jack had brought back from his search. “Because of these!”

“I was wondering about them.”

“Didn’t you read them?” Ianto quipped, fanning them in front of him.

“Something distracted me” Jack grumbled, taking the batch of photos instead and showing _them_ in front of Ianto, who simply grinned evilly back at him.

The camera couldn’t give a clear image of all of them, but the one on the top was quite visible and showed a very erotic image of a very naked Welshman.

“Oh well, I had to be sure I made your quest to find me a little less boring, didn’t I?”

“Ianto, despite the effect of _these_ on _me_ , have you ever thought about the _others_ finding them?” Jack reprimanded, shocked by the absolute lack of shame his normally modest boyfriend was showing.

“Oh yes” Ianto answered with a wicked grin. “Bit of a danger, isn’t it? Tosh was right when she said you get fuelled by it eventually.”

“I’m guessing she was not talking about sexual exploits, Ian.”

“So” Ianto said, changing topic as he looked at the cards he was still holding in his hand. “Here you have ‘ _shoes_ ’ and ‘ _socks_ ’ and this one has ‘ _tie_ ’”

Diligently Ianto took off and put away the three garments he had mentioned along with the three cards he had red out aloud.

“Going on you have ‘ _jacket_ ’ and ‘ _waistcoat_ ’” He undressed from the two pieces of clothing and proceeded to the last cards in his hands.

“Here you have ‘ _undershirt_ ’ and ‘ _underwear_ ’” He said, peeling away all his remaining clothes under the hungry stare of his lover. “But you didn’t get ‘ _shirt_ ’ or ‘ _trousers_ ’”

As quickly as he had undressed himself he put on again his red shirt and his trousers, only to finally stare at Jack as he was the most professional butler around.

“So, almighty Captain Harkness, here’s the deal. You’re missing two cards along with two pictures of me naked, horny and needy. And your loyal friends could be out there, accidentally finding them. On the other hand, I’m here, without a stitch under my trousers. Trousers that you can’t take away-”

“No, here’s the deal” Jack interrupted him, striding towards him to devour his lips once again. “There are two photos of you naked still around, how does it feel? Imagine one of the girls finding them and taking them to her home… Imagine her touching herself dreaming of you, her hands slowly caressin-”

“Stop it, Jack!” Ianto protested, completely flushed as he tried to free himself from Jack’s firm grip on him. “They are my friends”

“Wicked and sweet Ianto Jones” Jack murmured in his ear with a final chuckle, taking his chance to torture his earlobe as his hand wandered lower to cup Ianto’s hardening groin. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, you can’t deny that the idea is affecting you.”

“It-it’s not the idea… It’s you…” Ianto tried to defend himself, failing at keeping his cool controlled aura.

“Then why did you suggest playing this game with the others still here?” Jack asked, biting him lower along the neck and teasing his hard nipples with his hands. “Is it really the danger you like or you actually wanted them to join us? Imagine, we four, all over you, touching you and kissing you…”

“Aaah!” Ianto cried out, remembering only too late that he was supposed to keep quiet _because_ the others were still there. He bit the sleeve of his shirt to muffle the moans that dared to escape, until Jack too pity of him and stopped pinching his sensitive buds.

“I was bluffing, Jack” Ianto admitted flustered. “The cards are nowhere the team would usually go. They were all in places where only the two of us have access to”

“Still this doesn’t mean that they could not find them by chance. What if Owen found out? He doesn’t dislike a nice man in his bed to have fun with”

“Jack” This time Ianto’s face showed him clear disgust and Jack couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at it. “What? Am I the only man that turns you on?”

Ianto did not respond and only blushed shamefully, but that was even more valuable that any answer he could gave him. “You have no idea how much _this_ turns _me_ on.”

Jack’s hand went straight for Ianto’s cock, slipping inside the still undone trousers as Ianto brought their lips close together to muffle his own moans. His hands moved desperately all over his lover’s clothes, trying to undress him the best he could.

When he was sure Ianto was hard enough to not complain about the details of their game anymore, Jack got himself naked with Ianto’s help and then hastened to lower his lover’s trousers down to his knees.

“Jack…” Ianto tried to protest as he felt strong hands helping him lie down over the table.

“Don’t worry, when I’ll be done with you, you will still have your trousers on.”

Before Ianto could complain, Jack had produced a tube of lube out of nowhere and shifted his lover’s legs over his shoulder to get him ready. As soon as Ianto was sleek enough, he covered his own member with a fair amount of gel and without shifting much his lover he penetrated him slowly.

As soon as he started trusting inside him, both of them were so lost in their pleasure that the very idea of keeping quiet seemed overrated. Needy moans filled the room as much as the sound of their flesh slapping together, until they reached their limit and emptied themselves Ianto over his own chest and Jack inside him.

 

* * *

 

The two lovers on the screen, however, hadn’t been the only ones to get off, but also Jack, who had been watching with a mix of longing and amusement the whole video, had eventually given into the hardcore display in front of him. It wasn’t his fault that he had been missing what they had had in every possible way.

There were banters, teasing, cuddles, kisses and then the most physical part of it, the one they had started from and from where everything had evolved quicker than any of them had been willing to admit.

He looked at his dirty hand and wiped it clean, sighing dramatically. Gwen was really onto something telling him that he had to get over all this, but Jack had tried to do it so many times that now he was hurting way more than when he had just lost Ianto. Instead of healing, he had collected a new set of wounds that kept placing themselves right over his still bleeding ones, making them ache even more.

He needed something different than a new lover: he needed work to do.

And with that resolution in mind he took out his laptop and began reordering the data UNIT had sent them about the spikes registered in the area.

On the other computer monitor though, the video kept playing. This time changing the scene and showing the two of them battling over the last piece of cake after the little celebration they had held for Ianto’s birthday. He was feeling better just stealing a few glances at the tape every now and then, like his life had finally been whole again.

For him there was no work in Torchwood without Ianto Jones around.

Not anymore.

**T.B.C.**

 


	2. In the depth of the light

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

 

Before it was time for Gwen and Rhys to come back inside the hub, Jack escaped the routine he had imposed over himself and began wandering aimlessly around the city.

He had spent his night watching some videos from Rhiannon’s batch, videos full of his lover and himself working and entertaining themselves in their very own hub: he _had_ to find a way to get himself reacquainted with reality, or else he would easily end up crazy with grief.

Truth to be told, what had initially began as a pleasant way to kill boredom and eternity had eventually only made him wish desperately for his Welshman to come out of the screen and offer him a cup of coffee.

Jack knew that he wasn’t allowed to show himself weak to his own desire in front of the others, especially because Gwen would keep fussing on him and most likely take away his only beloved distraction. And there was no way in any inhabited galaxy that he would allow that.

The excuse he had found for his little tour around the city had been a ‘ _weak_ series of signals about _something_ that _could have been_ contaminated by void energy’. Jack could only guess that, if this was enough for UNIT to make Torchwood do some research over it, it was also enough for him to justify his apparently aimless stroll to his co-worker and her husband for his a.

Obviously, both Jack and UNIT were sure that there was nothing alien or dangerous to be found, but as long as there was a reason –no matter how far-fetched it was- they both thought that it was absolutely fine wasting public money on it. If it could also keep Gwen quiet, Jack counted it as an added bonus.

When boredom was eventually winning over him and Jack was beginning to seriously consider going to visit Rhiannon and beg the woman to make him company for a while, the soft buzz of the barely awake city was all of sudden interrupted by some loud noises coming from a near bank.

Jack made it just in time to see a skinny man dressed in dark rushing out from the building with a screaming young girl trapped in his arms, when the crowd around him began getting so thick that he had to make his way back to the front with a little more force that he had initially intended. When the robber was once again in his sight though, he could notice that in his hand there was no common gun or knife: there was a bloody grenade.

Luckily, everyone was too scared to try and go near the man: the fear of him dropping the small bomb seemed somehow greater than curiosity itself. The desperate glare in the robber’s eyes, moreover, was enough to tell Jack that he would have easily given up his life out of desperation, and apparently the same opinion was shared by Cardiff general population.

Mixed among the crowd, he could make out some policemen trying to approach him unnoticed but still unable to get near the man. Jack wasn’t certainly going to make a habit of letting himself be involved on mediocre events like a robbery in a bank, but since he was already there, he thought that for today he could even offer himself as bait.

Jack made some steps towards the robber, so that he could get the man’s attention on him, and offered him his best and most handsome smile.

“Nice day today”

That apparently did the trick and the robber turned to face him, finally giving his back to the police squad. The cops couldn’t be happier of Jack’s interference, and offered him a grateful nod before approaching the criminal. Instinct told them that they knew the man, making them glad that one of them undercover was around… even though their current amnesia about the identity of the handsome bloke might regrettably lead them to the chance that he was Torchwood. Bloody Torchwood, no matter how helpful it was at the moment.

Still, the help from someone who was not a civilian was welcomed, and they couldn’t be happier about it.

“Don’t talk to me” The robber screamed at Jack. “I’ll drop it! The girl will die!”

As if on cue, the young woman closed her eyes in fear, and a soft moan escaped her lips as she waited for her death like it was something imminent and unavoidable.

“You will die with her, have you thought about that?”

Jack tried to sound as calm as he could, even daring to take a couple of careful steps in his direction. The policemen behind the robber, on the other hand, were allowed to gain a much more important advantage.

“Stop right there I said! I don’t care if I die”

“If you didn’t care about dying, then why rob a bank? A ghost doesn’t need money”

He had chosen the word _ghost_ on purpose, and he was happy to notice how it had sorted the desired effect on the man: the robber tightened uncertainly his grip on his hostage, but his eyes were much less confident about his actions. Unsure of what that could mean, however, the small crowd that had formed around them dissipated quickly, making Jack way more relaxed, but also leaving the cops without more coverage.

Now they were alone in this: Jack, the policemen, the robber and one single innocent woman praying for her life.

“My family needs it…” The failed thief muttered.

“If that bomb explodes, no one will get the money. It will burn. And you and the girl with it”

“I had to _try_!”

“You’re right, you had to try” Jack admitted, trying to sound both caring and friendly as he dared to take another step towards the man. “But now the only thing you can do for your family is not giving them a tomb to grieve on. Believe me, no matter what you’ve done, no one wants that, not when it’s the tomb of someone you love. Don’t worry, there will be people to take care of them”

The man seemed to almost believe Jack’s words and was just about to let the girl go, when the policemen made their move and jumped on him from behind.

Everything happened in an instant.

One of the cops managed to slide in front of the robber and free the scared girl, taking her as far as he could, whilst other two tried to block him by the shoulders and disarm him. However, the desperate man wasn’t in for nicely giving up his freedom and struggled and tossed to escape the tight grip on him, eventually letting the grenade drop. Without the safety pin on.

Jack rushed forwards and reached for it just in time to stop it from exploding. Unfortunately, since the protection had already slipped off its place and he could not find it anywhere near, he was at a loss about what to do with it. Some rapid glances over the small bomb also told him that it was most certainly handmade: there was no chance it would work like a normal grenade would.

In his experience, everything could set it off, so he decided to throw it in the direction he had come from, where he knew that the crowd had already cleared and no one would be hurt.

Like he had predicted, it exploded in midair way sooner than he had expected.

The force of the blast sent the two policemen and the robber, who had already been retreating from the dangerous area, on the green patch of a private garden not far from where they had been, but Jack got the worst of it and he was thrown fiercely several feet backwards.

Opposite to the cops’ soft landing, to add hurt to injury, not only he was hit by the full force of the explosion, but he also got slammed violently against the wall of a nearby café.

It didn’t feel like dying to Jack actually, but the captain was certain that he had at least gotten himself a big concussion or something like that. He could feel himself losing and gaining conscience every now and then, but he was never aware enough to make out what was happening around him.

Everything sounded confused and muffled, with persistent shrills hurting his nerves way more than his head.

Jack could blame only himself for that, truth to be told, since he had completely forgotten to protect his ears from the noise of the blast. The last time he had faced a grenade was more than two thousand and fifty years before, however, so he decided to make old age guilty for his forgetfulness.

When finally he managed to distinguish some actual sounds, even though what was actually happening around him felt still a mystery to him, the few things he could be certain about were the high pitched scream of a woman and a familiar deep voice asking him something.

As he tried focusing on what was immediately in front of himself, he could only make out what seemed to be a dark skinned hand professionally opening his eyes and flashing them with some light, and another pale one methodically cleaning away the blood from his face.

He couldn’t know how much time had passed since he had been smashed against the wall, but he was certain that at least he hadn’t been moved from where he had landed, since the chatter and noises around him were certainly the ones of central Cardiff.

“Are you all right, sir?” Jack eventually managed to hear clearly, as even his vision began clearing up a bit.

“Sir?” The voice insisted, but its owner was apparently pushed away as the same dark skinned hand from before opened wide his eyes and flashed some more light at them. Now that he was way more conscious of his surroundings, that gesture made him react abruptly and he put some distance between himself and the owner of the hand that liked to torture him so much.

“He’s getting his senses back” An unknown female voice said in relief, apparently satisfied with his reaction.

After a couple of more blinks, Jack was sure that he was feeling marginally better and tentatively looked around himself, taking in the still vague crowd staring down at him concerned and the two fuzzy people towering over him.

“My head…” Jack moaned in pain.

“You should rest some more” The female voice said again, and this time he could fairly suspect that she was the owner of the hand that had tortured him with the annoying light. Looking at her sideways, he noticed that she was dressed in something long and white.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yeah… ED isn’t exactly my specialization though" The owner of the female voice admitted. "So you’ve better to just wait here a bit until they come. An ambulance should be here soon.”

“I don’t need an ambulance” Jack protested, trying to get up, but apparently it really was too soon, even for his standards, so his head simply began spinning like crazy again.

Two slim yet strong hands grasped him just in time before he fell and helped him lie down again.

“You shouldn’t push yourself too much, sir!” The deep male voice from before protested heatedly and now he was certain to recognize a Welsh accent in there. “Hasn’t your mother taught you to listen to medical advice?”

Jack wanted to glare at the unknown man, but his head was spinning too much, and it was only thanks to all his strength that he managed to barely set his eyes on the newcomer.

What he saw, however, made him think that he was hallucinating all over again.

Hovering over him there was a young pale man, with short dark curly hair and clear blue eyes. The image was still blurred and he couldn’t make out much of him aside that and the white shirt and tight jeans he was wearing, but the leap that his heart did in his chest couldn’t be just his imagination.

“Jack, stay behind and let him breathe” The medic admonished the Welshman, making him retreat a bit too much, making Jack’s attempt to focus on the man better fail miserably.

“How are you now? Where does it hurt more?” She asked again, but Jack plainly ignored her and kept staring at her companion, hoping for his sight to come back enough to see him properly.

The woman stared back and forth at the two of them a couple of times and then her gaze fixed on the wounded and confused captain. “Is there something wrong?”

The man who had been called Jack, though, took his chance to move near the captain once again and lowered himself enough to inadvertently let him finally see the man wearing his same name. Jack’s heart stopped beating as what could by reason be nothing more than an illusion took his breath away with his mere presence.

“Do you know me? Please, answer me…”

“Jack, darling, he’s got a concussion.” The doctor argued once again. “There’s no way he could recognize you even if he actually knew who you are... He’s just confused poor dear, and you’ve not many distinctive traits except that Welsh accent of yours. And we are in Wales.”

“I’m fine…” Jack protested, his speech slightly slurred.

“Please, stay here?” He added hastily, grasping the Welshman’s shirt for dear life, scared that the illusion might vanish before he could understand what the hell was happening. “Give me few more minutes and I’ll be fine…”

His head gently reclined to his side as he leaned on the young man assisting him, and eventually his breath evened, despite the doctor’s desperate attempts to keep him awake. The Welshman, unsure whether it was ok to move him or not, could do nothing but wait for his wake, holding him tight in his arms as he kept tending to his bruises, bruises that seemed to be healing far too well for his likings.

 

Much to everyone’s surprise though, Jack not only woke up unscathed from his momentary slumber, but a good part of the concussion symptoms he had been showing before had disappeared altogether. He also managed to sit up without any further complication, even though his self appointed carer kept his hands on his shoulders for good measure.

“Are you well, sir?” The Welshman asked tentatively and felt Jack tense under his grip as soon as the words left his mouth.

“You…” Jack asked with an extremely weak voice that only he knew that had nothing to do with the grenade accident. “Who are you?”

The Welshman smiled unsurely at him. “I’m Jack”

“Then we have the same name…” Jack had tried to go for humour, but the words just trailed off his mouth without actual emphasis, as he failed to contain his disappointment.

“Not unusual, Jack is common name” The medic butted in, crossing her arms on her chest and grimacing at him. “Look, I’m specialised in memory damages, but I know a concussion when I see one. You need to go to the hospital… Or well, you needed”

“I’m fine” Jack told her, still not managing to take his eyes off the Welshman until a word actually made it through the haze and caught his attention. “ _Memory_ damages?”

“Yeah, Jack here is my patient. We were trying to trigger his memory with a stroll around the city when we saw the little stunt you pulled. You have some nerve, Jack.”

Jack’s heart frenzied in his chest, as it irrationally hoped for something that he knew it couldn’t be possible. However, his eyes glued once again on the young man in front of him and he had to admit that his heart couldn’t be much wrong. Nothing seemed to stand out as different: same voice, same lips, same eyes, same face… he would go as far as to say same smell.

Same Ianto Jones.

“Marion’s right” The Welshman told Jack, offering him a sweet and honest smile that took his breath away for the second time in a few minutes. “You are a hero”

Once again Jack was at a loss of words, staring stupidly at the familiar features way too long than it was socially acceptable between strangers, until finally Marion took it upon herself to point out the obvious.

“Look, do you know him or have you just been love struck?”

“I’m sorry” Jack said quickly, still not managing to tear his eyes away from Ianto's look-alike despite his efforts. “It’s just… He looks too much like… but he can’t be…”

“I wouldn’t normally ask you this after the blow you took, however, if you _really_ are fine, why don’t we talk a little inside this bar? Jack’s amnesia needs quite a lot of help, so I wouldn’t mind if you could provide some… At the same time, it will make me feel better to keep an eye on that disappeared concussion of yours”

Jack automatically nodded at Marion’s proposal, and the three of them soon escaped the questioning crowd still present, seated themselves inside the bar and ordered extra-strong coffees for everyone.

“Coffee here is not bad” The Welsh Jack commented, feeling only a tiny bit uncomfortable because of Jack’s continuous stare on him. “But I discovered that I’m way better at doing it myself”

The captain laughed and eventually lowered his eyes, finally giving the Welshman the chance to stare back at him without feeling too inappropriate.

“I know, nobody can make a coffee like you- I mean…” He trailed off and stared at the opposite direction, realizing what he’d just said. “I- Well, my…. _friend_ , the one that looks like you… He could make marvellous coffee too. No one could match him in coffee making”

“What happened to him?” The Welshman enquired, hoping not to be too nosy.

“It’s classified” Jack blurted out before he could censor himself.

“What?” Marion asked shocked, reminding Jack of her presence at the table. “Who are you really?”

“My… _friend_ and I” Jack attempted to answer vaguely. “We were a particular kind of civil servants…”

“Civil servants?” Marion repeated unsurely, recalling something from the depth of her memory. “There was a group of unorthodox people, once, that still went by that definition, if I’m not wrong. No one knows what happened to them though… Did he go missing in action? That would explain a bit”

“Not exactly…” Jack trailed off once again, trying to find a way to properly dodge the questions even though he desperately wanted to confront the Welshman and see if something could _actually_ trigger his memory. “Where did you find… _Jack_. More than that, how do you know his name is Jack to begin with?”

“We found him last week under the debris of a pub already burned to ashes years ago. The name just came out naturally as he was wondering about a name he was familiar with. However, he himself couldn’t say why the name fell that easily out of his lips. Like the rest of the few things we managed to make him remember, he can’t make those memories his own or give them meaning. It’s quite unprecedented”

“So… You’re not sure that’s your name. It could be your father’s or your dog’s” _Or your boyfriend’s_ Jack’s mind supplied unhelpfully _._  Ianto's look-alike nodded sadly, confirming however his supposition. “What about the pub, what pub was it?”

“The pub that exploded some years ago, the one that was supposed to be hunted. For some reasons last week someone thought it was a good thing to make more debris out of the debris… Looks like our Jack was caught in the middle of it”

“As far as I know I could easily be the culprit…” The Welshman admitted with more than a hint of shame, hunching his shoulders guiltily in the same slightly childish way Ianto used to.

“You’re a nice man, Jack” Marion told the Welshman, her hand resting on his. The small affectionate gesture was enough to make Jack irrationally jealous, still, he managed to put on a fake smile as soon as she smiled back at him and excused herself for a while.

As soon as they were alone, nerves began eating Jack alive again.

It was since the day he had asked Ianto out on their first date that he had never felt so nervous. Back then, he had known he was walking on a very thin tread with Ianto and that the risk of being rejected was high because _he_ was the one at fault. Still, back then, he and Ianto had both clear in their head who they were and how much good or bad they had done to one another.

Now everything was different: Jack had no real reason to believe that the man sitting with him was his Ianto, and even if he was, at the moment they were nothing more than strangers. No back-story, no shared secrets, no guilt and no regrets to live for before it was too late.

How much he missed that messed up life of theirs.

“So… She seems nice for a doctor” Jack offered casually.

“The best there is at the hospital actually” The Welshman answered on the same tone.

“Are you going out together?” Jack asked eventually, hoping to seem nonchalant enough to be believed, but knowing by the Welshman’s stare on him that he had completely failed his goal.

“We went out together a couple of times, she’s a great girl” The Ianto look-alike answered truthfully, making Jack curse himself for letting his heart hope way ahead than what his rational mind would allow. “But we’re not together… Were you?”

“What?”

“You and your… _friend_. Considering how you speak about him and the way you look at me… If, if I were the man you knew, would we be together?”

“I- I don’t actually think I can find a way to say how it would be possible for you to really be him.”

“Was that a yes?”

Jack sighed deeply: trust Ianto to not strike home despite his intentions.

“Yeah… It broke my heart losing him.” He admitted, heaving a deep sigh.

“You… Do you have someone else? Now?”

“No, just our tapes-”

Before Jack could explain further, Marion came back, smiling interested at him and making the captain wonder if she had left exactly in order for Jack to open up with her patient. “Am I hearing about tapes? Registrations? They could be good for therapy”

“And they could contain something classified” Jack quipped curtly, not happy to have been caught with his defences down in front of a stranger. Somehow, the Welshman made him feel completely at ease, no matter how much he tired to remember how he was a stranger as well, but the young doctor didn’t have the added benefit to look like his old boyfriend.

“Find one without classified information and let’s watch it together then, so I can be sure you’re not making up stories about his past only to get into his bed. After I confirm you’re safe for him, you can watch the rest together and I’ll step aside. You seem to let out information easily when you’re alone with him, even though you keep saying it’s not possible for our Jack to be your _friend_.”

“What about checking the progress of the therapy?” Jack countered, a bit suspicious by her proposal.

“I can check it later, I don’t need to see the videos myself. So, you’re up for it, Jack?” She said turning to the Welshman, who just kept staring at the other Jack without really acknowledging her words. “Jack!?”

“Oh, me?” He stuttered eventually. “Well, I-I’ve got nothing to lose…”

“Neither do I” Jack stated, eventually losing himself into the Welshman’s eyes as soon as they met again. “Still, before going on with this, I need to start some analysis. I need to discover what happened to you, because, if you really are who I think you are, well, it would be one hell of a story and you must want to know it as much as I do”

Marion rolled her eyes, annoyed by Jack’s lack of proper information about what had happened to her patient, whilst the Welshman simply nodded and kept staring uncertain at Jack as his blue orbs seemed almost wider and cleared than before.

“But… Who would I be?” He asked unsurely in the end.

“What?” Jack countered, slightly taken out of his own reverie.

“If I were him, your _friend_ …” The Welshman clarified. “What would my name be?”

Jack smiled at him and then simply had to tear his eyes away from the man, before everything became too overwhelming for his already fragile nerves. He took out from his pocket his professional kit to take samples and focused on the items in there. “Ianto. Your name would be Ianto.”

“Ianto?” The Welshman said, savouring the name on his lips. “Why would I come up with a name like Jack though?”

Jack made him open his mouth to take a swab of saliva and filed it away, preparing the syringe for the blood.

“You tell me” He teased, smirking in his direction and making the Welshman blush in embarrassment.

Marion’s eyes went from one Jack to the other as the captain proceeded with his efficient work, going from using one ordinary syringe and swab to some high tech device she’d never seen anywhere else. When Jack explained that it was used to scan the air around him, she could do nothing more than hope that he wasn’t having her on.

“I’m done here” Jack concluded eventually and stood up, ready to go back to the hub.

“Jack? You know…” The Welshman protested, sadness seeping through his voice. “You keep staring at me like that, but you still need all this… Why would it be so difficult to accept that I’m Ianto?”

Jack bought himself some more time checking some inexistent folds on his shirt, but eventually he knew he had to answer.

“If you were Ianto, I guess you would like answers for you being here… But I have none to give you, and I suspect that you wouldn’t know even with your whole memory...”

The Welshman nodded, despite knowing for some strange reason that Jack’s answer was far from the truth.

“It’s getting late, my co-workers will be worried… And I want to analyse this as soon as possible.” Jack told them as he leaned over the couple and offered them a piece of paper and a pen. “The only address I can give you is the information boot near the Millennium centre, I’m sorry.”

“Still classified?” The Welshman asked curiously as Marion took the pen and paper and began scribbling her address and phone number on the card.

“No, I really don’t have my own place. I sleep where I work… And where I work is classified.”

“You’ve better to have told us the truth, you know?” Marion snapped, giving him back his things. “Give us a call when you find something to see, we’ll meet at my place.”

“Alright” Jack told her, but then his eyes were again on his lover’s look alike to steal a last glance at the man. “See you soon then”

That said, Jack literally escaped, leaving behind himself a dubious doctor and a completely amazed Welshman.

“So… Were you hiding it from me for some reason? I would have never guessed you to be gay” Marion told her patient and friend with fake nonchalance.

“I wasn’t hiding anything, and I don’t really think I’m gay.” The Welshman protested, slouching over his chain now that he could no longer ogle the handsome stranger. “Still, there’s something I can’t explain about that man… When he flirted with me… It felt natural. Nice.”

“Nice?” Marion asked surprised.

“Yeah, nice.” He repeated still a little bit dazed, but as soon as he remembered what had been going on between him and his doctor, he soon stared down at his hands ashamed. “I mean, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to fake it, Jack, it’s fine. I wasn’t going to drag you to my parents, you know? We just went to dinner a couple of times”

“And I liked it.” The Welshman hastened to add.

“Yeah, but you like him better.” Marion stated matter-of-factly, making him blush.

“What if it’s just my own idea?” He asked her, still not daring to stare at her in the eyes. “What if I’m willing myself to want him only to demonstrate that I’m really someone with a proper identity?”

“So I was right thinking that the _friend_ wasn’t just a friend.” Marion noted completely satisfied with the results that her little trick had brought.

Ianto’s look alike nodded and then stared vaguely outside the window. “I wonder what happened, he looked like he had seen a ghost”

“Well where we found you was once called the House of Dead. Ghosts were supposed to be seen in there, who knows, maybe you’re one of them”

“Maybe he thought me dead? But I feel very much alive” The Welsh Jack protested, looking down at himself and patting dubiously his chest. “Why didn’t he check if I was really dead if he loved me that much? He said it has been years!”

“Look, despite what that Jack said, usually gaining back your memory is the key to erase all of your doubts. Try to be nice to him, but don’t overdo it, not until you recover something you are certain is yours. You will never know what he’s hiding”

“Fine” He accepted plainly.

“C’mon, let’s get back home.” Marion decided eventually, standing up ready to pay for their coffees. “We still need to find that horror movie with those monsters in blue boiler suits”

**T.B.C.**


	3. Sealed hopes

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

 

 

Jack was waiting in front of the plain door of the doctor Marion Stevenson’s flat. While standing there, doing nothing but praying that the young Welshman who looked like his Ianto was really behind it, he tried to remember if he had made up enough excuses to keep his friends busy for the day: God forbid Gwen started to worry about him and to stalk him. Again.

He kept telling himself that he just wanted to protect her in the dire case that Ianto’s look alike wasn’t really their beloved co-worker, but he knew, deep inside himself, that the shock of this news would only be his, especially after what he had found out thanks to the tests.

No, there wasn’t a way darker reason behind his lack of communication with the others, no matter how much the tiny little voice in his head kept screaming that Jack actually wanted to keep this innocent Ianto away from Torchwood and all for himself.  

Jack shook his head to push away that egoistic little thought, and got his best smile ready as soon as the door opened and he found himself face to face with his Welsh namesake. Taking in his appearance, he felt even more insecure than before about his chances with him, and, scarily enough, about the answers he had gotten from the Torchwood machineries.

This man was young… extremely young, and Jack didn’t really remember Ianto being this young while being with him. Nevertheless, he had also never seen Ianto in shabby blue jeans since he was 24 years old and, the last time that had happened, he had been way too angry and annoyed at his lover to actually notice how young he seemed.

“You’ve been staring. Is that a habit of yours?” Ianto’s look alike asked, opening the door wider to let the captain get inside.

“Only when I see something I really like” Jack flirted instinctively, making the other man blush at the compliment.

The living room was simple, clean, and, much to Jack’s happiness, lacking of Marion’s presence.

“I- I’ve been wondering…” He said, taking advantage of them being alone. “How old are you supposed to be?”

“About 26, according to the medics.” The Welshman answered proudly, smirking a bit. “What, your researches didn’t lead you to all the answers you wanted?”

“No, I- I’ve just been wondering…” He trailed off unsurely and decided that he had better stop right there, in case the man in front of him wasn’t really his Ianto. “I found a flash drive!”

“Why would someone save personal videos on a flash drive?” Marion said, making Jack jump in surprise despite knowing too well that she was supposed to show up at one point or the other.

“Well, some of what we stored it’s from our surveillance system. If we got caught doing something we didn’t want to share, we deleted it-”

“But we made a copy first, didn’t we?” The Welshman asked, sounding quite sure of his assumptions.

“Yeah.” Jack confirmed, grinning unreservedly. “We filled drives, DVDs and more”

“I wish I could see them” Ianto muttered softly, staring so intently at him that Jack was almost sure he was trying to imply something more than just office registrations. Strangely, something about it made him feel quite uncomfortable, no matter how much the Welshman’s words were exactly what his Ianto would have said under the same circumstances.

“Only if mama Marion approves” Jack answered eventually.

“Speaking of mothers” Marion interrupted, taking her chance to say aloud something that has been bothering her for quite some time. “You’re old”

“Hey!!” Jack protested, but, through the corner of his eyes, he could happily notice Ianto roll his eyes at the doctor.

“I wasn’t judging, only considering.” She pointed out annoyed.

“It was between consentient adults.”

“Let’s see it then” She challenged him, showing him the computer location as she moved the sofa in front of it for a more comfortable viewing.

***After the Circus -Private- ***

The camera showed a big open area surrounded by desks, computer stations and different kind of techs hard to classify for a common civilian. On the one wall they could see, right in front of the camera and looking completely out of place in that metallic section, there was a lone basketball ring. Jack stood in front of it, trying to throw the ball inside without much success.

After another couple of failed shots, the sound of someone approaching echoed inside the large room, someone who was apparently making his way on the cold metal of some grates not included in the scenery.

“Jack, c’mon, just give up” A deep familiar voice suggested softly.

“It’s the ring.” Jack protested, failing once again another shot. “I’m sure it’s not fixed properly”

“You know I am the one fixing it every time, and I can assure you that it is perfectly fastened” The same voice retorted, even though its owner was still not noticeable.

“Are you sure?”

“Jack” The newcomer said with a deep Welsh accent, finally allowing his back to become visible on screen as he approached the captain. “You’re out of focus, be both are”

He made all his way up to the captain and took in his hands the ball Jack was still holding, letting it linger between the two of them. “Come to my flat tonight.” He whispered in Jack’s ear, his voice barely audible despite the amplifying effect of the open area.

Jack turned to face him properly and simply offered him a seductive smirk that was clearly fake. “Are you proposing me?”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight” The Welshman admitted honestly, ignoring Jack’s assumption and hunching his shoulders a bit like a scolded kid.

“Ianto, what happened wasn’t your fault” Jack told him, letting the ball run on the floor and grasping both his companions arms as he tried to make him look up at him again. “We did our best, and most of your deductions were brilliant. We wouldn’t have known where to start if you didn’t notice that there was something wrong with the videos”

“But _I_ had the flask and _I_ couldn’t keep it safe. I might be good with thinking, but put me into something practical and… God Jack, now that kid is all alone and all those people died!”

“Shhh” Jack tried to calm him down, holding him tight in his arms. Ianto held him back and relaxed visibly in his lover’s embrace. “You’re not useless, Ianto, some people are better dealing with some things, others are greater facing different ones… No one can be good with everything, besides, no one could have foreseen what happened. Believe me, you shouldn’t fault yourself”

“But-”

“No buts. Think that we saved _one:_ that’s good enough at the end of the day”

“It’s not enough” Ianto kept retorting stubbornly.

“If you think like that, then nothing is ever enough.” Jack reprimanded him. “You need to learn how to cope with this”

“I can’t!” Ianto yelled, attempting to free himself from Jack’s hold without much conviction. “It’s still sad, it will always be… I keep thinking that I could have done something more…”

Jack closed his eyes and took a big breath before looking once again at his lover. “We’re going out. On a date.”

“Jack, I-”

“C’mon, let’s have a good time.” Jack offered him with a big sad smile. “You need to remember that you didn’t die along with them”

“I really just want… It’s too much, and actually…” Not really knowing how to phrase his own thoughts, Ianto eventually just sighed and shook his head in surrender. “Maybe you should just work a little more with me on my shooting”

“You wanna play baseball?” Jack teased, faking surprise.

“I meant with _guns_ ” Ianto stressed irritated, but his voice revealed that a smile was already forming on his lips.

“C’mon Ianto, you’re a perfectly fine shooter” Jack countered, eyeing his lover with fondness.

“You know I’m not, but thank you anyway” A single shook of his shoulders was enough to show his complete disappointment.

“More shooting practice wouldn’t have helped you today” Jack protested, slightly annoyed at Ianto’s determination.

“No, but it might help soothe my remorse right now” Ianto admitted plainly.

“I stand my ground, but I won’t say no to such an opportunity” He said softly, turning his lover so that now he was facing the camera for the first time since the registration began as he started massaging his arms and shoulders.

“This… is soothing” Ianto whispered, enjoying the slow and teasing rub with his eyes closed. Jack smirked and closed up the space between the two of them even more, taking his chance to kiss his lover’s neck at its base.

“Sure you don’t want to skip target practice?”

“You’re completely unprofessional” Ianto protested weakly.

“It’s afterhours”

“I’m not supposed to like the sound of that”

“You should, you asked me to stay with you tonight after all” Jack kept teasing, trying shamelessly to up the ante with boths his hands and words. “And I have a proposition for you.”

“Hmm?”

“A nice dinner for two, and then we have a look at that museum exhibition… On one of your pamphlet they wrote that it stays open until late at night.” Jack explained in details. “I don’t think we’re in the mood for a trip to the cinema today, but that could make it up for it”

“Sounds romantic” Ianto noted, as a warm blush spread on his cheeks as his resolve definitively crumbled.

“It does, and you don’t know what the restaurant main dish is yet”

“Something dirty?” Ianto asked curiously.

“Aphrodisiacal”

“And you plan a trip to the museum after that?” Ianto joked smiling, now visibly at ease.

Jack laughed heartedly, tightening his hold on the Welshman. “Do you have other ideas?”

“Well, at my flat there’s-” Ianto stopped suddenly, as if he had just remembered something else, and he hastily put some distance between the two of them. “We really shouldn’t do this after I made a fool of myself endangering and killing all those people”

Jack rolled his eyes and caught up with Ianto so that there was noticeably less space between them than even before. “You tried _your best_ to save them, now stop this. We already had our share of crying at the hospital”

“That was relief. For the kid.” Ianto said, trying to make some order on both his thoughts and feelings. “A kid that truth to be told doesn’t have much to be happy”

“He has his life, Ianto. And you wouldn’t betray the memory of those you couldn’t save only because you’re having a good time, you would be celebrating who’s still alive…” Jack offered. “You know it’s true, you told me this”

“Yeah, but it’s easier telling others than doing it yourself” Ianto admitted eventually with a sigh.

“Then let me repeat this to you over and over during our nice dinner at the restaurant, and then, at your flat, it will be up to you deciding if you had enough or if you’re up to something more.”

Ianto turned to face Jack once again, but even though the camera couldn’t show his face, his stance was a mix of casual and determination.

“What if I decide that I just want to sleep?” He countered, as if he was attempting to whip up Jack.

“Then we’ll sleep” Jack answered quietly instead. “And since today our work ruffled your feathers this much, I’ll cuddle you to sleep, so you can rest safely the whole night in my arms”

Ianto’s shoulders tensed and he took half a step back, everything in his posture screaming discomfort and surprise. “We… Well, it’s not like we-”

“Would you mind it?” Jack asked him, understanding too well where Ianto’s fears lay.

Some minutes flew by in silence, and then the Welshman finally nodded, whispered a barely audible “Yes”, and then rushed towards Jack to capture his lips in a heated kiss. No much time had to pass before Jack finally answered back, letting his hands trail freely up and down Ianto’s arms comfortably, before settling eventually on the nape of his neck.

For some time, only the sound of clothes rustling echoed in the room, but nothing graphic was visible on screen until Jack’s shirt fell undone at their feet, soon followed by Ianto’s jacket. The Welshman shirt was just about to follow, and the top of his naked shoulder was peeking out in the open-

***Pause***

“Hey! I was watching it!” Marion retorted pouting, but Jack simply glared in her direction making very clear his intention to interrupt the play _that_ very moment.

“Ian- I mean… Jack?” Jack asked worriedly, noticing the young Welshman at his side still staring at the screen.

“What had just happened?” Ianto’s look alike asked tensely.

“Sorry, there wasn’t much else I could offer without giving away something classified or, well, some _privacy_ of our own.” Jack explained, glancing furtively at Marion. “Here we didn’t have much to talk about our work… We only wished to forget it, truth to be told”

“You… lost people?”

“Yeah, a fair number of people. Here they were _only_ someone that we could have saved, but they were basically strangers to us. Later on it happened also to our best friends and co-workers, Tosh and Owen”

An awkward silence fell as the Welsh Jack could just nod, not knowing what there was left for him to say or ask about those revelations. Unfortunately, those names told him absolutely nothing, and something in Jack’s eyes told him that the hardest to accept for the captain weren’t even them. What could have happened in their line of duty worse than losing their best friends?

It was Marion who eventually decided to undo the stalemate, using the same technique that had helped her getting information at the cafeteria: she stood up, took her things and quickly run for the door.

“I’m leaving you two alone, just…” She stopped for a fraction on the threshold to give the boys an accusing glance. “Don’t get over excited”

Then she closed the door with a loud _slam_ , leaving behind an utterly embarrassed Welshman and a quite amused Captain.

“Has she just told us that we can see the video further by ourselves?” Jack teased, amused by the doctor’s actions. “Tell me she _does_ have hidden cameras”

The younger man’s embarrassment only deepened. “I- I actually… Well, I think she hoped for us to talk about some of those classified things freely…”

“I still can’t do that, not even with you” Jack admitted unwillingly. “I’m sorry”

“Does it have something to do with the results of the tests?” Ianto’s look-alike asked, trying to hide his uncertainty and disappointment and failing miserably at it.

“They are the problem, but it’s not what you think.” Jack explained. “They actually confirmed your identity.”

The Welsh Jack, now definitively proven to be Ianto Jones, stared finally back at him, looking happy and yet absolutely confused. “What’s the problem then? You’ve got someone else? Did we fight before I went missing?”

Jack stared at him, not really knowing what to say. “You’re still doing this. Why do you keep asking me about our relationship or about me? Shouldn’t you be more concerned about yourself? Your family, our work or the causes of your… getting missed!?”

“W-well…” Ianto stuttered, realizing that Jack was speaking the truth and that it wasn’t rational at all. Not by Marion’s statements on amnesiac people and much less by his own logic. Still, something in his mind kept telling him that _Jack and their whereabouts_ were the only thing that really mattered _right now_ about what had happened to his forgotten life. “I thought that maybe you didn’t exactly want me back… After all you stopped searching for me…”

“Ianto- I mean, Jack… If you really had _only_ gone missing, I would have _never_ stopped searching for you. But I can’t tell you the truth now, not until we discovered what really happened and you get your memory back.”

“Help me then…” Ianto countered before he could think properly. “… gaining back my memory I mean. Then I could help you discovering what happened!”

“What if you don’t know and you remember enough of what had happened to ask yourself why you being here is it even possible? I need to be sure to have an answer for you _before_ you gain your memory back, and I’m still working on it… As things are now though, I really fear that even if I just _stay_ with you I could make you remember by accident.”

“But I’m already remembering…”

Jack’s eyes widened in shock, as he stared at the sheepish and vulnerable expression Ianto was wearing. “This wasn’t in the files Marion sent me”

“She thought most of that to be part of sci-fi movies, but now I’m not so sure… Besides, I kept for myself some other things”

“What things?”

“I’m not really sure I should tell you, exactly for the same reasons I didn’t tell her at the time”

Ianto glanced nervously at his surrounding, looking at everything that wasn’t Jack and tormenting nervously the smooth surface of his jeans.

“Ianto, if it’s your past, I already know most of it. I really liked to be the man you could talk to, and you had a desperate need to let everything out when we met.”

“That’s not it, it’s just…” He trailed off, getting more embarrassed as the time passed and eventually averting his eyes from Jack completely after a last quick look at him. “Well, when I kissed Marion I remembered myself kissing another woman that looked a bit like her… A woman that was lying on a sort of mechanic device”

As Ianto stole another quick glance in Jack’s direction, he noticed the man staring a bit shocked at him.

“Oh” Jack was barely able to enunciate.

“Yep” Ianto confirmed ashamed.

“So, you kissed”

Ianto gulped, not really expecting that out of everything he was fearing about Jack would just ask about it like this.

“Which girl are we talking about?” He asked eventually.

Ianto’s quick question made Jack chuckle instinctively and that somehow cleared the captain’s mind a bit from his fog of jealousy and surprise.

“Marion, actually. I kinda guessed you and Lisa kissed at a certain point in time, since she was your girlfriend and all”

“Lisa? Was that her name?” Ianto asked confused. “How did you know my… ex?”

“Well, saying that I knew her it’s not probably the right way to put it…” Jack admitted. “We had quite an encounter with her, and after that you talked a fair bit about you two, but… As a matter of fact when I met her she wasn’t quite herself, so all I really know is your point of view on her. Mostly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, Ianto” Jack told him, not at all sure whether it was good having such a conversation at the moment or not. “Your life has been in such dangers and absurd things that it would break you if you happened to remember shreds of it not knowing the whole story behind… No, maybe even if you remembered every detail it would be too much for you to take in”

“That’s twice” Ianto considered, noticing Jack’s questioning eyes as he took in his words but not really caring about changing completely subject at the moment. “That’s the second time you called me Ianto”

Jack eventually didn’t know what to say. His mind screamed that it wasn’t normal for an amnesiac -and much less to someone peculiar like Ianto- to ignore the main bits of his own past and always focus only on the details regarding the two of them. However, he had to admit that he himself was behaving weirdly enough to confuse Ianto, so maybe his responses were just triggered by that.

Back to Ianto’s statement though, the name had actually come out so naturally that Jack hadn’t even noticed he had used it. After all, since all his tests turned out positive, it had been quite difficult for him to not consider the man as his long lost boyfriend. He still didn’t know _how_ it was possible, and he was less than sure that everything could be back the way it was before Thames house between them, nonetheless he was still hoping that everything turned out fine.

No matter how much he feared to even touch the man or Ianto’s rejection of what the truth would be, he still couldn’t stop hoping to get back the same Ianto he had been kissing and making love to in all those tapes he had in his office.

No matter if what had happened in the House of Dead told him a different story.

“I’m… sorry” Were the only words Jack felt safe to say eventually.

“Don’t be. I like it.” Ianto reassured him with a smile. “It feels way more real than Jack…”

“Well, it certainly suits you”

“Thanks” Ianto said embarrassedly, and tried to close the space between them a bit. “So… Are you going to show me some more of this tape?”

It took all Jack’s strength to not accept the offer he had been given on the spot. He tried to put an awkward smile on his lips and after a deep breath he was almost sure his voice could sound casual enough. “Shouldn’t you ask me about your family, your life?”

“I’m supposed to ask, I know that, it’s just…” Ianto said, as if he was forcing himself to admit it. Then, all of sudden he looked up to stare right in Jack’s eyes, and there the captain could notice an odd mix of confusion and desire in them. “Your aftershave is really good”

“I don’t wear any.” Jack tried, hoping to help Ianto remembering if that expression meant that something was trying to break through the surface. “51st century pheromones”

Ianto’s eyes clouded a bit more, visibly not recalling their conversation and much less understanding what Jack was talking about. “Does it explain why I want to shag you till the end of the month?”

“A bit…” Jack admitted, now extremely worried. “But what you’re experiencing is wrong, you’re feeling them too much. I can think that more than my pheromones it’s a matter of routine, like associating the smell of your lover to the actual act, but no matter what, they should not be enough to make you do something you don’t want to do”

“Or someone” Ianto deadpanned, and Jack could finally notice him shacking.

“Ianto, are you alright? You never had problems refusing me”

“I’m fine, really” Ianto countered quickly, honestly forcing himself to stay focused on their conversation. “Speaking about that, you said it has been years for us. How many? None of us is much younger in your videos”

Jack didn’t feel comfortable enough to take his eyes away from Ianto, especially as he had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t really trying to change subject, but that his question had a specific aim. What this aim was worried him a bit.

“That’s one of the problematic things to explain… It was six years ago”

“That’s an awful load of time…” Ianto said, and Jack could notice the exact moment in which he finally gave up to close the space between the two of them with determination. “I think you’re right, my body might have just missed you”

Ianto tried to go for a kiss, but Jack stopped him, trying to make him stay on his side of the sofa.

“Ianto, stop it.” He admonished. “Not like this!”

“Why not? I’m willing!” Ianto almost yelled, harassed by Jack’s refusal.

“First, you’re _not_ much willing and I can’t understand why you are not yourself at the moment. Secondly, you’re not going to waste the chance for us to have a real first kiss. You deserve it!”

“We were together, didn’t we kiss?” Ianto asked, flushed in embarrassment for his lack of control and extremely confused by Jack’s words.

“Of course we kissed! Just… we didn’t have a nice romantic first kiss like the movies.” Jack explained, feeling even more ashamed admitting it out loud. “ _You_ ’re the romantic type, way more than me… Wouldn’t you like the chance to get a real first kiss?”

“At the moment I just want you” Ianto pleaded, slightly irritated, and then tried to kiss him again, even though Jack managed to dodge him just in time.

“Ianto stop!” He took the Welshman by his hand and led him straight out of the apartment. As he opened the door, he found himself face to face with a very confused Marion.

“What’s happening?”

“He never tried to jump on you, didn’t he?” Jack asked just to be on the safe side.

Her eyes grew even larger. “Of course not!”

“Then I’ll steal him for a bit, I need to scan his head with the proper devices”

Without giving Marion the chance to say a single thing, Jack strode out of the room, dragging a confused but willing Ianto with him and then, as soon as they reached his car, he secured him in the back seat of the SUV with the safe belt.

“Jack, would you care to explain to me what the hell is happening!?” Ianto yelled eventually, disappointed by being fastened to the backseat.

“Want to know something?” Jack replied, as he checked Ianto though the rear visor. “I really wish _you_ could tell _me_ ”

“Where are we going?”

“Where I can reassure myself that you’re fine.” Jack quipped. “I’m taking you to the hub.”

“The Hub?” Ianto protested grimacing. “Sounds like a pub name…”

Despite his worries for his lover’s wellbeing, Jack sniggered at the joke and started the engine, hoping to get to the hub before things went out of hand. He would have never thought in his life that he would fear a Ianto too much interested in getting him laid.

 

* * *

 

 

Hopefully, they reached Cardiff Bay without incidents.

As soon as they got inside the turist centre, Jack knew he was in for quite a lot of explanations to too many different people, so he decided to loosely explain what was going to happen to Ianto before being slashed to death by Gwen for retaining important information such as finding their dead co-worker alive and with amnesia.

“Ianto, focus on me for a bit will you?”

“I’m very much focused” Ianto assured him, honestly and pretty much brutally.

His bitter irony worried and yet reassured Jack a bit. After all, the man seemed to have gained back a bit of his composure during their trip in the SUV, even though the impulse making him act appeared even stronger than before.

“What you’re going to see is a bit incredible, but you have to trust me: I can explain _everything_ , just not all together and not as soon as you set foot inside.”

“Why are you bringing me in here now, then?” Ianto enquired suspiciously. “Am I in a so bad shape?”

“No, you look quite good to me actually” Jack said thoughtlessly, and then mentally slapped himself as he saw Ianto’s lips twist in a small smirk. “Yeah, you look good physically speaking too, and I’d like very much taking up on your offer, but what’s happening to you is _not_ normal, so _everything_ will have to wait. Now, what I meant was that I will have someone else’s questions to answer first, so do me a favour and hang on yours. I’ll get you back on those, promise”

Ianto nodded, so Jack finally entered the code to open the wall and then rushed down the metallic steps. The Welshman, on the contrary, descended pretty slowly, staring amazed at the cold walls around him and at the seemingly infinite staircase.

That was how, when Jack finally got past the cog-door, he was the only one Gwen could scream at.

“Jack, what’s the meaning of all these tests you ran behind our backs!?” She yelled furiously, slapping her hand soundly over some folders. “I want to hear a clear explanation, Mr. Harkness, because _none_ of this is making _any_ sense!”

“I still don’t understand why you’re screaming” Jack stated resignedly. Unfortunately it didn’t have the hoped effect to calm her down, and Gwen’s eyes just grew angrier.

“What project could be so important for you to work on it in the depth of the night, hiding everything from us!” She pointed out, a hint of desperation clear in her eyes. “There are only three of us here and we’ve almost nothing to do: we could have helped, Jack!”

“But I didn’t _need_ help.” Jack pointed out quietly. “And besides, I wanted to understand what I was dealing with before telling you everything.”

“What _is_ this everything!?” Gwen kept going, closing up the space between them and pointing his finger accusingly at his chest. “ _What_ are you hiding, and _WHY_ you are bloody hiding it!”

“Gwen, you’re taking it much worse than it should be”

“What am I supposed to think then-” Her words stopped in her throat as she noticed by the cog door who was the newcomer that had appeared over Jack's shoulder.

“Am I interrupting something?” Ianto asked uncertain, making both Gwen’s and Rhys’ jaws dropping almost automatically.

“Oh my God…” Gwen whispered weakly. “But… How?”

“I have no idea” Jack explained calmly, pinching the root of his nose with his fingers and glad that the onslaught was over. “But a couple of things about him are still unusual, so I thought that a visit to the hub was in order before clearing him”

“Clearing him _as what_?” Rhys asked, utterly confused.

“Clearing him as our Ianto Jones”

Not knowing what else to do, Ianto simply smiled at the two strangers and weaved his hand at them. “Hello”

“B-but… What is he? A clone? You didn’t make it, didn’t you?”

Gwen using the word ‘ _what_ ’ while referring to him made Ianto grimace, but a bit more hurtful was the casual tone in which Jack answered to it.

“I didn’t, but I really have no real idea, Gwen. The only thing I know for sure is that he matches with everything I know about Ianto, with the exception that he has no memory of anything and… well, he’s still young.”

“Jack please, he’s dressed casual.” Gwen pointed out, gesturing to Jack to just forget the doubts he held about this peculiarity. “I realised what his actual age was only when I saw him wearing jeans at the Beacons. He could easily be 32 and not showing it.”

“But I’m 26” Ianto protested, feeling excluded.

“What would you know?” Gwen snapped at him before she could censor herself. “I thought you had amnesia”

“Well, my medics said so” Ianto challenged, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at her. “And who are you to speak to me like that?”

The rude question took Gwen by surprise, as if all of sudden the weight of ‘ _Ianto came back from the dead_ ’ and ‘ _he’s amnesiac_ ’ had finally hit her full force. Ianto wasn’t a subject they could talk randomly about anymore, he was a living person in front of her. A person that at the moment didn’t share a single hour with her.

She sat on the nearest chair and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, my God” She whispered.

Ianto could only watch her carefully and raise an eyebrow at her weird behaviour.

“Ianto, she’s Gwen” Jack said, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “She worked with us. The other man is Rhys, her husband. He’s been giving us a hand after your… departure”

“ _Departure_ is a ridiculous way to put it” Gwen protested weakly, but she realised that telling the man that he had been dead until now _couldn’t_ be sensible, no matter how much the truth was still very well impressed in her eyes.

“Still, ‘ _departure_ ’ will have to work for all of us until _he_ regains his memory and _I_ discover what the hell happened. As for now, I have some scans to do. If you will excuse me” Jack explained curtly, and took Ianto’s hand to lead him towards the medical bay.

“Can we do something when we’ve finished this?” Ianto asked as soon as he felt that Jack’s whole attention was back on him. To Jack’s ears he sounded a bit too hopeful and absolutely uncaring of who was around him, something that he would never associate with Ianto.

“No Ianto, please” Jack willed himself to say. “I told you it’s not good at the moment”

“But you _do_ smell good” Ianto protested, resting his forehead defeated on Jack’s shoulder and making him eventually to stop walking.

Gwen looked up at them dubiously, frowned, and then eventually stood up to reach them and take a sniff at Jack.

“He doesn’t smell any different than usual” She concluded, glad that she’d not missed any particular detail. “He doesn’t have a particular scent on, he never had.”

Ianto chocked down the outraged comment he wanted to make against Gwen sniffling other people’s partners, but he still allowed himself to glare at her.

“How can you not notice, it’s…” Ianto scanned his mind for adjectives that could describe what was smelling. “Exciting, strong. Maddening”

“I feel a lingering attraction to him, but no particular scent” Gwen countered, clearly at a loss.

Jack simply crossed his arms on his chest disappointed, and then grimaced when Rhys joined the bickering couple in taking a sniff at him.

“Gwen’s right.” The other Welshman concluded. “Weird feelings, but no scent”

“Good” Gwen concluded pleased. “Then we know what’s wrong with him”

“No, we don’t” Jack pointed out annoyed “Ianto always said he could _smell_ my pheromones. Some people are simply keen to identify them with a particular scent more than others”

Everyone in the room stared impressed at his explanation, making Jack roll his eyes in annoyance.

“I’ve never seen Ianto’s mind so clouded though” He added, as to not make any of the others think that he had somehow coerced his lover to sleep with him back then.

“I still have my freewill” Ianto pointed out resolutely, earning only distrustful stares directed at him by everyone else in the room.

“That’s what I wanted to look at.” Jack explained, leading Ianto back towards the machinery he intended to use. “Maybe what happened to him might have turned him more sensible to certain things, like my pheromones, and that might have caused the memory loss. This would explain something at least, unless…”

“Unless?” Both Gwen and Ianto asked at the same time.

“Unless the only problem here is actually the memory loss”

“Meaning?” Rhys asked, confused as much as the others.

“Ianto grew up in Cardiff, in a particular… situation, right on the rift. That might have triggered something… You know, he worked in London before joining us, there they could have cured him of something as well as they could have used him for anything… However, here really might just be only my dislike for Torchwood One speaking”

“Are you trying to say that me going after you could just be a reaction of chemicals enhanced by this thing called rift or by experimentation of some sort I might have had at this Torchwood One? That everything we had was a lie?” Ianto protested, but Jack was quick to shake his head.

“Nothing like that. I already told you that you were perfectly able to turn me down back then, and now you yourself said that you still have control over yourself. This pheromones thing is like…” Jack took some time to himself to think about a proper way to describe how they worked, before finding one he could use with 21st century humans. “You usually walk around the streets and see plenty of photos around you, but at the moment mine is as big as a scented poster. You can’t stop noticing, but you act on it only if you like what you see… The problem here is the reason behind it”

“I didn’t get you wanted privacy in London…” Rhys offered, trying to be helpful to the discussion. “Maybe now he’s back for it? Like a ghost that-”

“Rhys” Gwen stopped him quickly, taking his husband’s hand in hers. “Let’s take a walk outside, we’ll get some coffees for the rest of the team”

“But I think I finally found the right blen-”

“Rhys” She stated, not admitting complaint and dragging Rhys out of the cog door. “We’ll be back… in a while”

Jack stared grateful at Gwen’s retreating figure and then focused back on Ianto, who was currently simply staring sad at his feet.

“Don’t think too much about your past, everything will become clear in due time”

“Jack, just answer me this…” He asked subdued. “What’s the last thing I told you?”

Jack stared adoringly at him a few seconds, before cupping his cheeks with his hands and helping him to stare once again up at him.

“You said you loved me… You said you loved me too.” Jack answered cryptically.

“I…” Ianto replied unsurely, somehow knowing Jack was telling the truth about both statements. “I wouldn’t really mind to kiss you”

“Me too” Jack said sighing deeply, resting his forehead on his lover’s. “But let’s wait. Because _I_ know you, but _you_ don’t know me quite as much”

“Feel like it though…”

“Do you have memories of us?” Jack asked hopefully.

“One… Maybe…” The words rolled out of his lips without Ianto actually acknowledging them ad surprising even himself, since he wasn’t sure at all that he held such a memory.

“Care to tell me?”

“You were in your office, I think” Ianto said, as the memory actually presented itself in front of his eyes as he described it to Jack. “And you were staring at me like I was all you cared for in the world, like… You needed and treasured me. I kissed you and you kissed me back… I remember I couldn’t stop, it was like kissing you was meant to show you how much I wanted for you to _stay_ , stay by my side, on this Earth. I don’t really know where that desire came from though.”

Jack smiled at him softly and brought their foreheads together. “I remember that night… You have no idea how much I appreciated that. I never had someone to come back to in a long while.”

“I wish I remembered…” Ianto whispered as his vision cleared and he lost himself in the depth of Jack’s blue eyes.

“I… wish you remembered too. That was a wonderful evening we shared”

Ianto tried tentatively to lock their lips together again, but at the last moment Jack turned his face away, escaping the kiss and Ianto’s hold at the same time.

“Jack…” Ianto whispered disheartened.

“Let’s get this sorted out” Jack told him, forcing a smile on his lips.

That said, he silently led him in the depth of the medical area, hoping for his devices to tell him the truths he hoped for.

**T.B.C.**

 


	4. If I fall in love with you

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

  

After a few hours of scans and tests, Jack decided to check everything again by himself and sent Ianto to watch some of the videos his sister had provided. After a shy beginning, some of them easily became Ianto’s favourites, especially the ones including adult versions of more known kids’ games.

Eventually, however, Ianto had to admit that he couldn’t grasp the depth of his own character.

There was something in the general attitude of his video-self that Ianto simply couldn’t understand: the way he moved around Jack, the sad longing in his eyes, the remissive approach whenever he confronted Jack on some of the things he said or did… It was like he had been scorched badly by something, something he couldn’t remember and that he couldn’t outline from the few misplaced words in one DVD or another.

Jack had told him that they had seen lots of terrible things in their years working together, alright, but somehow Ianto felt like that whole attitude was related to the captain in particular.

Annoyed by the lack of help coming from the DVDs and his own memory, Ianto pushed away the remaining stacks of his ‘allowed videos’ and rummaged among the ones Jack had still deemed unsafe for the current state of his memory. He got his hands on a random flash-drive with a weird name on it and connected it to the computer, hoping that this ‘ _inappropriate’_ information were shocking enough to jog his memory.

***Flat Holm -Aftermath***

Ianto sat alone at the far end of the long table inside the conference room, apparently waiting for something... or someone.

After few seconds, said someone arrived, in the form of an extremely angry Jack. He had a high stack of blank papers with him, and he unceremoniously let them fall all in front of Ianto, cluttering the neat surface of the table with an indefinite mountain of messed up sheets.

“Hope you’re ready for a night in, Ianto, because I want a detailed report for every single missing person Gwen made contact with. The complete victim’s data, whether we retrieved them or not, how she interacted with them _or_ their family, detailed description on _how_ and _how much_ retcon we administered”

Ianto bit his lower lip and took a deep breath through his nose.

“It should be Gwen’s work.” He managed to say. “Besides, I already have perfectly filled files on the missing people in the archives, I can just add the part concerning the parents being involved now and the retcon administration. I don’t need to redo everything from scratch.”

“Oh, you will add that information on the victims’ files, yes, but you will also write these reports. _You_ will do it, not Gwen, because _you_ are the Flat Holm responsible inside the team and also the one that made _her_ find out about the island!”

“You already yelled at me for that!” Ianto snapped, staring angrily at Jack but still keeping his calm façade on the outside. “And I already told you that it was better ending things quickly, because she’s stubborn. I don’t deserve to be punished like a schoolboy, writing the same thing over and over!”

“Oh, yes, you _do_!” Jack stated, slapping his hands on the table to emphasize his rage. “You _do_ need to be punished like schoolboy since you’re acting like one!”

“I’m not and you know it!” Ianto retorted, he himself slapping his hands on the table and standing up to face Jack. “I thought about the situation very accurately before acting!”

“You. Did. _Not_! You disobeyed me when I gave you clear orders!”

“If I disobeyed your orders, then punish me accordingly” Ianto teased, the glint in his eyes showing something different than anger.

“Oh no, you won’t get out of this thanks to our relationship this time.” Jack said finally, and then turned his back to his lover to make his exit, leaving Ianto pouting disappointed behind him. However, soon he stopped on the spot and stared once again back at him. “Wait a minute, was _that_ on purpose too?”

“ _What_ was?” Ianto quipped exasperated, as he seated back on his seat and tried to reorder the papers he was supposed to fill.

“Gwen discovering us”

“I do not own mind-control as special ability and I had no real access at the security system to jump on you as soon as she crossed the door” Ianto pointed out matter-of-factly.

“No, but you’re good discovering patterns and habits. You usually give Owen double strength coffee on Saturday, because you understood that he would end up asking for another in less than an hour if you didn’t”

“So,” Ianto drawled, gracing the edge of the reordered stack of paper with the tip of his finger, but not meeting Jack’s eyes. “You’re asking me if Gwen usually takes the same amount of time each time to: go back ‘ _to stay with Rhys_ ’, jeopardize every plan she made with the man and come back here bitching for you to reconsider one of her ideas that you just denied?”

“Ianto, you’re evil.” Jack concluded, shaking his head confused at the veiled admission of guilt. “Why would you do that?”

“Maybe because our dance at her wedding wasn’t warning enough and because you didn’t even _want_ to hear me out when I asked you to tell her about Flat Holm. You even snapped at me worse than at her, even though I was trying to make you see reason!”

“See reason!? Your little jealous stunt put the families of the victims in danger!”

“ _I_ didn’t do it, _Gwen_ did! Stop forgetting about that!”

“You told her-”

“I didn’t tell her a thing!” Ianto stressed out once again. “I sent her in the right direction before she got her nose in way more important things! Did you really want Gwen to discover all your and my little secrets just for not telling her about one single fucking island!? An island she was bound to discover anyway!? Do you want to shield her from the ‘ _cruel reality_ ’ that much?”

“Oh, so you tried to protect me now.” Jack said flatly. “With a jealous stunt.”

“Well sorry for caring then! Maybe you would have liked it, her discovering all of your secrets, so she could finally become your confident instead of me and lick _your wounds_!”

“Ianto, now-” Jack attempted to mend in, realizing that they were messing and mixing things up quite royally.

“There’s no _Ianto now_! She’s married for fuck’s sake! I’m sick of this and I’m sick of you!”

Ianto punched the table in rage and stood up once again, almost running for the door. As he passed next to Jack though, the captain snatched his arm and made him stop his rush.

“Let me go!” Ianto yelled, trying to escape his lover’s grip.

“Ianto, listen to me” Jack manoeuvred him between the table and himself, taking care to block all his escaping routes. “Nothing will ever happen between me and Gwen”

“Why? Because she’s married? Because I’m enough to satisfy your basic needs?” Ianto said, choosing his words well enough to get some reaction from Jack. “It’s still not because you don’t want her!”

“What made you come up with all of this?” Jack asked unsure, taken aback by his lover’s hurtful words.

“Oh, let me think about it.” Ianto drawled, hurt now clearly seeping through his words. “Maybe me writing five hundred times _not to be a bad boy_ whilst she’s already back home with the man she’s married with!”

“She’s been punished enough seeing what she’s done and I yelled at her properly too”

“Didn’t I see the same desperation in those mothers’ eyes?” Ianto pointed out. “Didn’t I feel guilty for showing her the way to Flat Holm and making her see all that desolation!? Didn’t I feel ashamed through my bones when she saw her loyal and quiet co-worker half naked with his hands inside our boss’ pants!? Why do I have to do homework and be criticized by my lover, instead of getting a candlelight dinner to forget this horrible day!?”

Jack lowered his eyes and took a deep breath, realizing only then why people kept saying that relationships between bosses and underlings weren’t easily manageable.

“Ianto, I… Didn’t considered how much you felt involved in what happened, I’m sorry.” Jack admitted. “Still, that misjudged punishment was from your boss, not from your lover”

“How am I supposed to understand who is which right now? It’s usually the lover the one clouding the boss’s views on what happens, not vice versa.”

“You know it’s not true with me, Ianto, I’m just trying to not favour you over the others. That wouldn’t be professional”

“So what? To not favour me, you treat me worse than them? Why? Because you know that even though you’re mean I won’t complain!? Or because you need always fresh examples of how you punish me despite our relationship to give to whoever question your judgement on me!?”

“I never thought any of those things!” Jack countered heatedly, despite realizing that quite often he had actually been harsher on Ianto than to the others for that very same reason. “C’mon Ianto, try to see reason…”

“I don’t want to!” Ianto yelled, trying once again to free himself from Jack’s grip.

“You’re acting like a child!” Jack yelled back, holding on his lover for dear life. “Get a grip of yourself!”

Ianto finally stopped struggling and Jack mentally slapped himself, seeing tears glimmering at the corner of his eyes. He hugged Ianto tightly and kissed him reassuringly on his cheek.

“Sorry, Ianto. I didn’t mean to be that harsh…”

“Who’s sorry now?” Ianto protested weakly. “My boss or my lover?”

“Both I think”

“You… think.” Ianto deadpanned.

“Well, yeah, I behaved badly from both sides… However, I think it’s the lover the most sorry of the two. The boss is more hurt in his pride than sorry actually, because he didn’t realize that you had already got your punishment.”

“Why doesn’t the lover feel hurt by the same reason then?” Ianto sniffed.

“Because he _should_ have noticed… So he’s feeling extremely guilty... And sorry.” Jack tightened his hold around Ianto and left a couple more kiss on his cheek and then a few more on his neck until eventually his lover relaxed in his arms. “It’s just that… You’re bloody difficult to read. Just the opposite of Gwen”

Ianto sighed and finally hugged Jack back, offering him a quick peck on his lips as forgiveness token.

“I’m sorry too… You said yourself that a relationship of any kind with you would be difficult to bear, just… I already have to stand you dying every time and know that you will come back hurting like hell… At least in the small things, in our everyday life, I’d like something nice to make up for all that, something that shows me that we are for real...”

“I don’t sleep with anyone else at the moment” Jack offered, making Ianto chuckle despite the increasing sadness in his eyes.

“Are you saying that monogamy is the only nice thing you can give me?”

“Of course not, but me telling you this in plain words is something that helps easing your heart, isn’t it? I’m from the future after all, I know you still have doubts for the way I was used to behave in the past”

“Oh, so you know me that well” Ianto teased, his smile visibly more real this time.

“I know you well enough when I’m not an enraged boss” Jack stated proudly, earning a nod from Ianto for his efforts.

“I’ll have to take your double personality then, along with your… unfortunate condition”

Jack kissed him again on his lips, making it longer and sweeter than Ianto’s last one.

“I’m sorry to be a burden to you”

“You’re not” Ianto stated, capturing Jack’s lips in another chaste kiss. “More like the opposite”

“Am I forgiven then?” Jack asked, resting his forehead against Ianto’s.

“Yeah… But only if you can make it up to me?”

Jack gave him a flirty smile and caressed Ianto’s jaw with the tip of his finger. “What about dinner and a movie?”

“What about we follow through what Gwen interrupted, and _then_ dinner at mine?”

“I like it” Jack said smirking at Ianto. “What’s on the menu?”

“You?” Ianto teased, kissing Jack hungrily and turning their positions so that Jack was the one trapped between Ianto and the table…

***Pause***

Ianto stared at the video, not knowing exactly what to think about it.

Certainly Jack had a condition that was ‘ _unfortunate’_ , so he had guessed right about the captain hiding something, but aside that he couldn’t really explain anything else.

His counterpart had said that Jack could die and come back from death: rationally speaking it was impossible, so Ianto crossed out the literal interpretation of the statement, despite his better judgement, and tried to think about an option that could actually make sense to him.

Maybe he fainted frequently? Recovering wasn’t painful though. Maybe he had epileptic attacks? Those surely must feel like dying and sounded painful enough even though he had never experienced them.

What to make of Jack’s admission to be from the future though? Was that just a pick up line? Could it mean that he was good in bed? Probably his love-making was something extreme and avant-garde… He certainly looked like he could do something like that.

Too many of Ianto’s questions couldn’t be answered though, and unfortunately they were all about the man he was somehow strongly attracted to. He had no other choice than waiting for Jack to tell him though, didn’t he? As he turned his eyes towards Jack’s office door, Ianto had to really question if that time was ever going to come.

He didn’t like to leave something so important about his life to the likings of someone else, and even though he might end up regretting it later, he _wanted_ to make that mistake and do finally something he believed to be good _and necessary_. Wasting time doing nothing wasn’t in his character… At least, as far as he knew.

Getting back his memory was going to be difficult, and not only because all Marion’s science hadn’t helped him that much until now, but also because at the moment the main point of everything crossing his mind was Jack: the doubts he still had about his ‘ _condition_ ’, his ‘ _coming from the future’_ , but more than anything else, just _the man_ himself.

It was absurd and strange at the same time. Ianto didn’t feel like he had been some sort of sexual deprived maniac in his past, and even in the worst videos he had seen, even before his amnesia he had always been quite the traditionalist, getting involved maybe a little too much wholeheartedly but never really searching for it.

Now, the need to be with Jack was always there with him, clouding his mind like a thick fog that didn’t leave him much room to focus on his amnesia or to even court the man the way he wanted to. A situation that somehow made him wonder if he really was the same Ianto Jones of the videos, the one with his life held firmly in his hands and that could speak clearly his mind to his lover.

After taking a deep breath, Ianto decided that the _real_ first thing he had to do was finding the captain and convince him to kiss him, date him or something: no matter how much he really wanted to be useful to himself and Jack -or see the sex scene that was going to follow on screen- he too desperately wanted something real, something that really was _his_.

 

It didn’t take him too much time to find the man he was searching for soundly asleep on the sofa in his office. Seeing him like that, Ianto decided that probably most of the things Jack had told him in the past and that didn’t really make sense were only to brag about himself more than the truth. Proof was that he had seen in one of the videos Jack saying that he didn’t really need to sleep, something that even his not-amnesiac self found barely believable at all.

Ianto knelt down next to him and for some long minutes simply enjoyed the view, losing himself in some vague fantasies that could even have been real memories. It seemed almost impossible that a man so handsome had been his lover, but for some reason, as soon as he had seen the captain that first time near the bank, he had known without doubt that they weren’t just strangers.

Everything drew him to Jack and, more specifically, drew him to kiss him.

The captain would have never allowed that, but he was currently sleeping and Ianto really wanted to get closer to him... Closer to his past and to his forgotten life. Stealing a kiss from a person he had met only a few days before felt absolutely out of his nature, but the maddening scent surrounding Jack erased even the last bit of self control that he still had, and eventually Ianto had to give in.

He leaned forwards tentatively, hovering over him just so that their noses were almost touching, and he simply prayed every God that was supposed to be out there for Jack to not wake up. He swallowed, and eventually moved closer… and finally he could feel Jack’s cold lips on his, way softer than he had foreseen.

Ianto awkwardly deepened the kiss and, after a small surprised groan, he finally felt Jack, still half asleep, answering heatedly as they held each other closer and their hands buried themselves in each other’s hair.

Disappointingly, it didn’t take too much for Jack to snap back into consciousness, and as soon as he realised what he was doing, he broke the kiss abruptly and tried to make some room between himself and his former lover.

“The hell, Ianto! It was our first kiss!" Jack complained. "It was your only chance to finally have it right!”

Ianto blinked a couple of times, feeling like he had just woken up from a long sleep. The thick haze clouding his mind had finally lifted and that gave him a more real perception of his surroundings. As proof of that, as soon as allowed himself a moment to replay what Jack had just told him, he was quickly ready to focus on how mental his lover’s words were.

“Jack, I don’t bloody care about _how_ this second first kiss happens as long as _you_ don’t regret it. If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, we will never progress!”

“Progress? Where to?” Jack asked, momentarily disoriented by Ianto’s words and earning an annoyed grunt from his lover.

“I was under the impression that we liked one another… However” Ianto noted, surprised he himself as he considered how he was feeling. “I don’t really think you affect me that much anymore now that I kissed you”

“Is this a nice way to tell me how much I deluded you with this kiss?” Jack tried to tease Ianto to lighten the mood, but he actually felt utterly mortified and quite worried by the meaning behind his lover’s words.

“Quite the opposite, I’d still like to be kissing you more than anything” Ianto reassured him hastily. “The kiss was amazing”

“Then, what did you mean?”

“I just… It’s like…” Ianto scanned his head for a proper definition of how he was feeling, but he couldn’t find much help there. “A spell broke”

“Ianto, please, you _must_ know that usually magic has more scientific reasons behind it”

“I don’t mean like a real spell, but… I don’t feel that force _making_ me want to kiss you _no matter what_ and _above anything else_." Inato explained. "This reminds me, do you need to do more tests with me?”

“I don’t know…” Jack answered tiredly, yawning and stretching his limbs. “Some values are off, but I don’t really think that your need to kiss me was caused by those”

“Off? How off?”

“Something between composition and radiation…” Jack answered vaguely, somehow glad that Ianto was asking about the sensible things for once. “But I’m still at a loss there”

“So… I’m not really your Ianto Jones” Ianto noted sadly and still terribly confused by Jack’s explanation as he attempted to stand up and leave. “I-I’m sorry for the kiss, I’d better-”

“Don’t be silly, I never said you weren’t Ianto. On the contrary, I’m quite sure you’re him now” Jack told him, taking his hands between his own. “I just… Can’t wrap my mind around the fact that you’re back. It’s…”

“Sad? Unwanted? Uncalled f-”

“Amazing, Ianto. Utterly unbelievable." Jack interrupted Ianto's babbling. "I- I really don’t know if there’s a proper way to show you how happy I am that you’re my Ianto and that you’re back to me… I’m so happy that I don’t really know what to do.”

“You could always kiss me.” Ianto stated with fake nonchalance. “I wouldn’t mind that”

Jack eventually burst out laughing as he took Ianto in his arms and hugged him close. “My god, I missed you, Ian. You have no idea how much.”

Ianto, even though he was extremely happy by Jack’s confession and his hug, was at a loss of words. Proper etiquette would have him saying that he had missed Jack too, but truth was that, despite all the videos and the fog dissipating, his memory was still empty. The only thing he had was this knowledge, deep inside himself, that he was supposed to be with the man currently hugging him and nothing else.

Until few minutes before, there had been also the strange daze he kept falling into whenever he was near Jack, but now that it was gone… He had to admit to feel quite empty and lost, even though maybe it had only finished its purpose.

Wait. A. Minute.

“Jack?” Ianto called, getting closer to Jack. “What if the daze was only a way to make me recognize you, so that as soon as we crossed paths I could know who could lead me to my past?”

“It’s reasonable” Jack admitted, trying to make Ianto’s hypothesis work with the current events. “Still you’re taking for granted that someone put such a ‘ _spell’_ on you”

“You’re right” Ianto admitted crestfallen. “Still there was something that’s clearly not in my head anymore… Who could have such power? Hypothetically.”

“The Doctor for one… However, with the right equipment it’s not something totally unheard of, not even in this time. I guess we might be able to find something alien to borrow from UNIT to analyse this thing further if you feel like it”

“What’s UNIT?” Ianto asked innocently, leaving Jack speechless for a moment.

 “Oh gods, I almost forgot you’re still amnesiac… And why aren’t you asking about the Doctor but only about UNIT?”

Ianto stared at Jack, trying to find an answer to that question in his head, but he simply could find none. It was like something told him that it didn’t matter if he didn’t know who the Doctor was, a sensation that apparently didn’t extend to this UNIT thing.

It was just like what he felt about Jack, the same instinct that made him focus on his lover rather than his family, just working in the opposite direction.

“I… don’t know. It feels like it’s not important who he is.”

“So you at least know that we’re talking about a specific male person and just not about a random doctor” Jack keep on, gluing his eyes on Ianto and grabbing him by his shoulders. “How do you know it?”

“Jack… You’re scaring me” Ianto managed to say, making Jack put some space between the two of them as he realized what he was doing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you”

“It’s fine…” Ianto told him, hoping to still be in time to bring Jack back on the tracks he wanted. “Still, there’s nothing we can do now, isn’t it?”

“No. Still, I think we should now wait and see if, now that the haze has lifted, you will gain your memory back. You didn’t really remember much up until now, didn’t you?”

“Well, whatever thing crossed my mind has been like seeing a movie or a dream truth to be told, not much felt real except something about you.”

“This keeps getting weirder” Jack sighed, resting his elbows on his legs and just staring down at the floor. “It really feels like I’m the centre of everything you remember or want… It’s not healthy. Now we also have this thing about the Doctor to add to the mix and I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Maybe it’s just the proof that he’s or he’s not behind this… Or simply it’s just the beginning of me remembering again.”

“You don’t really remember him Ianto, and that thing about me could still be addiction…" Jack explained, yawning tiredly as discomfort dawned on him. "And then, however, we should see if it’s normal or induced by someone...”

“Someone?”

“Someone toying with you before we met for example, so that you need to kiss me regularly”

Jack's suggestion was logical, Ianto had to admit, and the fact that he hadn't thought about it himself before Jack pointed it out made him realize why his lover kept himself suspicious about his whereabouts. With the work they did in the past, they couldn't allow any chances, it was really awkward that, amnesiac or not, the haze hadn't make him realize such an easy truth. 

Things weren't going to head the proper way if they kept the stalemate going, somehow he was sure of it. This made him reach only one conclusion: his bloody amnesia had to go and the key, he bet, was Jack Harkness.

“Who would benefit from this?” Ianto asked eventually.

“It could be a way to get you near me and then use you against me" Jack offered randomly. "You not bothering about who the Doctor is could mean that we’re talking about one of his enemies...”

“Now, that’s absolutely random, not taking in to account that I _do_ mind the consequences” Ianto countered, feeling that Jack's hypothesis was quite far from a real possibility.

“Consequences?”

“Yep. To test your theory I should go back not kissing you and I don’t want that”

“I thought the haze lifted” Jack questioned worriedly.

“Oh, it has." Ianto reassured him. "Now the point is not me _needing_ to kiss you, but me _wanting_ to kiss you. I still think you’re bloody handsome. And dashing”

“Oh, so you liked what you tasted” Jack teased, intrigued by the change in terms. If Ianto was back to his old self, amnesiac or not, things could finally turn out for the best between them.

“Immensely” Ianto said, sitting himself closer to where Jack was. “Moreover, you said that you wanted to be proper with me, since the first time we mixed the bases… Well, we already met, been together a few times as friends, and now I just kissed you. Guess what comes next.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Jack asked amused, staring at Ianto’s smirk.

“You bet I am"Ianto confirmed with a smart smirk on his lips. "You said there are no more tests for me, are you free?”

“When?”

“Right now”

“Bring it on, Ianto Jones.”

Ianto smirked widely and stood up from the sofa, grabbing quickly Jack’s wrist to drag him outside the hub. Somehow, Jack couldn’t wait to see what Ianto would take out from his hat when faced with dating another man for the first time. This amnesia thing could turn out to be way more interesting than he had initially though.

**T.B.C.**

 


	5. Heading off to tomorrow

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

 

 

What became their second first date was nothing like Jack had imagined.

Being both quite taken with one another when they started dating the first time, they had always preferred to do something romantic, or have a kind of date that could easily lead to fantastic sex sessions. This was also a nice way to enjoy themselves as a couple rather than as just co-workers and friends, something that could break their action-movie routine.

This Ianto he was with, though, had no dangerous life to separate himself from, no bad experiences in the past that made him insecure of his actions, no fear of being outed to his family and no already built intimacy with Jack. Ianto basically knew nothing about the man he liked, and that lead him to eventually show his age.

Marion had a chance to point that out during one of her warning calls before allowing Jack to meet him again: all Ianto knew about life was what he liked to do and countless reassurances that his worst nightmares weren’t true. Something that Jack knew was a complete lie, but that still was real for this Ianto. No problematic family background, no aliens, no converted girlfriend, no cannibals, no desperate sex sessions hoping to escape reality.

The thought of what his lover would be like without all his dramatic past had crossed Jack’s mind in the past, but he had never really concerned himself with it. By the time he cared enough for Ianto to ask himself that question, the Welshman was already happy with him enough to be again himself. Himself, but a step forward than where they were now, since Ianto never really had to court Jack starting from scratch.

Hell, they began flirting with one another within the first fifteen minutes they had met over a still struggling weevil.

That’s why this date turned out to be quite the surprise for the captain, who unexpectedly found himself at the Cardiff Stadium watching a rugby match among noisy and over-excited people. More than his surroundings, it was the fact that Ianto had already bought tickets to the match that really moved and shocked Jack: this made him see their new relationship and Ianto’s current state of mind under a completely different light.

Even if Ianto’s previous obsession with him was still quite scary, it was also true that Ianto had already made up his mind about asking Jack out, no matter how the afternoon would turn out be and what he would discover about himself watching Jack’s videos.

It was quite nice, actually, to know that he had planned to step their relationship forward regardless of the proofs about his own identity, still it bothered Jack to think about how out of character were both Ianto dragging him to a rugby match and he taking the initiative. It made him insecure, somehow, but it still made him extremely happy: he had always wondered if, to a certain extent, he had been the one dragging Ianto into their relationship, taking advantage of his anguish and his need to have someone close, or if things would have eventually progressed on their own.

He wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to enjoy his first date with Ianto asking him out though, so, for the whole length of the match, Jack simply enjoyed the play or, to tell the truth, the players: strong men with well definite muscles that ended up in the weirdest positions while sweating and giving all of them to reach their goal.

He had known that Ianto liked rugby, but now that he had seen the play in action he could easily guess why he had encountered so little problems seducing the Welshman.

As soon as they were out of the stadium and he was waiting on a bench for Ianto to come back from wherever he had gone, Jack eventually let himself wonder where the idea for this date had come from and why it hadn't come sooner in their relationship. Maybe the answer to everything was simply in the troublesome past his lover had had and, maybe even more than that, the slight guilt Ianto had felt for the whole Lisa ordeal… However, later on in their relationship, Jack made so many mistakes that Ianto could have really nothing to feel guilty for...

... except not being able to find a ‘ _cure_ ’ for Jack’s condition.

Jack covered his face with his hands as he tried to screen himself away from that small detail he had momentarily forgotten.

So, that’s what had always stopped Ianto to open up with Jack. Yes, he was scared about being considered gay, yes, with all his bad experiences he wasn’t keen on getting burned again, but also… courting Jack would mean to risk letting Jack fall for him. And that was something that the captain himself knew wasn’t supposed to happen. In the end, however, he had fell despite his better judgment, and they had grown to love one another so much that eventually Jack had forgotten his own taboos and signed their damnation.

As Ianto came back to him with a couple of hotdogs in his hands, Jack couldn’t stop thinking, though, that no damnation could ever be so sweet to endure.

They ate in silence for a while, Ianto still a bit unsure about how to approach Jack and Jack still lost in his own musing, until the Welshman finally gathered the courage to ask one of the questions the captain had grown to fear the most in all his years alive, especially when it came from dear ones.

“Jack? Some things we told each other...” Ianto started unsurely.

“What are you talking about?”

“Something in one of the videos, one not on the safe list” Ianto’s attentive eyes registered Jack swallowing awkwardly his bite of food, but he knew that there was no turning back. “What did I mean when I said that you have a _condition_?”

“Ianto I-”

“Are you ill?” Ianto interrupted, hoping to give proper suggestions.

“No, I’m not” Jack told him, feeling physical pain at the single idea of speaking out his mind. “Ianto, listen, I would prefer not to go there with you now. You are still missing the biggest part of your memories”

“I did know about this before, so why can’t I know now?” Ianto pointed out.

“Yeah, but you also knew how to take it, no matter how accidentally you discovered it. Moreover… I like you the way you’re now: free of everything that tied you down, happy and carefree. I don’t want to make it harder for you so soon, I don’t mind what we’re building now”

“It will happen sooner or later” Ianto said matter-of-factly.

“We are still not sure…”

“Will knowing about your condition really make it worse for me?” Ianto reasoned. “What if we keep going out together, is it really something you can keep from me?”

“It could make it worse, but well… considering how my life gets sometimes, I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you”

“So tell me Jack! Trust me, I won’t run from you”

“You never did” Jack confessed, giving up any pretence. “I have to give you that, but I can’t stop thinking that knowing about my _condition_ might change your attitude towards me”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because in the past you hardly would have taken upon yourself dragging me to a date like this. Even when you asked me out, you usually tried not to make it too much official”

“Why would I do that?” Ianto asked puzzled.

“To not pressure me, I think” Jack admitted. “If you showed openly how much you loved me, I might have ended up showing you how much I loved you”

“I… I can’t understand. Why would that be bad?”

“It would show in my face how badly we were involved with one another… It would have showed me how much our relationship was true and how much would hurt me losing it. Losing you. However, what eventually happened to you showed the truth at my face despite my denial”

“Then you _are_ ill…” Ianto said, trying his best to understand what Jack actually meant. “Are you going to die? No matter how soon it is, it’s always better to love and lose than not to love at all…”

“I know, I learned that being with you” Jack told him, cupping Ianto’s cheek with his hand affectionately. “However the situation is not like you’re picturing it, it is… Completely reversed, Ianto. Could you really keep saying that if it was reversed?”

“Reversed? Am _I_ mortally ill?” Ianto muttered, puzzled. “But… I said _you_ had a condition in the video”

“You’re not ill, Ianto, however you’re going to die before me, and there’s no way I can stop this from happening”

“What’s _this_? Black magic?” Ianto asked annoyed. “I thought we just caught aliens”

“Ianto… I’m immortal.” Jack told him eventually. “I can die, but I can’t stay dead. I’ll keep coming back forever. In a thousand years you will be dead, but I will still be here, probably mourning your loss”

“This… This really puts everything in a different setting” Ianto admitted, taking a deep breath and escaping Jack’s touch, hurting his lover badly with his gesture without even noticing it.

“Yeah” Jack explained defeated, his hands cradled in his lap. “I _want_ to take this second chance I have with you, with my whole heart, however I think that in the past _you_ never wanted to tie me down with this. No matter how much you wanted me or how much you believed my words… You cared about my future more”

“It feels like something I would do, I have to give you that” Ianto admitted serenely, looking down at his hands.

“You’re taking it awfully well” Jack noted suspiciously, considering his initial escaping from his touch.

“Well, it gives a nice feeling the idea of never having to worry about the death of the man you like”

“Ianto, why are you not freaking out? You’re unusually quiet”

“Did I freak out the first time?” Was Ianto’s calm question.

“You saw me dying and then revive… I guess that more than shocked about the revelation, you were relieved to have me back again”

Ianto nodded pensively, probably feeling something that he couldn’t still remember resurface from the depth of his memory. “Did I discover by chance other… things?”

“There’s the fact that I come from the future, however-”

“You told me that one the first times we met. The 51st century pheromones thing.” Ianto reminded Jack, as the first time they met after the failed robbery at the bank filed itself next to another scene of him and Jack, where they were preparing to catch something hidden in a warehouse. “I remember also another time… I think. However, I'm sure it was related to the same smell that kept dragging me to you until now. Now I can still smell it, but it’s not that much strong and heady”

“There was a time when you believed my pheromones made you want me” Jack joked, unaware of Ianto’s mention to his previous memories.

“Even I know that pheromones don’t work this way” Ianto answered plainly, a small smile creeping on his lips.

“So… What now?”

Ianto glanced back at Jack and stared at him with big eyes that failed to hide his concern.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what do you want to do? You have the chance to start a new life without all the complications of your past…” Jack said, taking his chance to point out something that had been bothering him since the first time he had realized that the Welshman was actually his Ianto Jones. “You could simply forget me and your past to just focus on the future you have ahead of you, live a normal life”

“I would never know what happened to me, who I were” Ianto protested astonished.

“You might not want to remember” Jack told him sadly.

“But I do” Ianto countered, feeling like he was telling that to Jack for the eighth time. “Besides, it would be difficult to keep dating you if I didn’t get back my work”

“Wait, what!?” Jack asked shocked, uncaring of the people around. “What are you asking me here, Ianto?”

“Well, I told you I want to know you better and gain back my past, so it’s just obvious that I want to get back as much as I can to our old routine. This includes Torchwood.” Ianto explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Afte a while in which Jack wasn’t answering, Ianto eventually questioned “Why? Don’t you want to offer me a job there?”

“The work now is different-” Jack attempted to say.

“Great then” Ianto said plainly, offering Jack a reassuring smile. “This way I don’t need to remember everything beforehand, however the familiar surroundings could still jog my memory”

“So… You want a job at Torchwood. To remember” Jack summed up, furrowing his eyebrows. “And after that?”

“Well, I need enough money to buy my own place and go out with you” Ianto counted on his hand. “It’s hard getting some privacy with Marion lurking behind us, even though I will have to keep therapy going”

“You really want to keep dating?” Jack realized, flabbergasted at his own luck. “Me?”

“Who else should I date, you daft sod?” Ianto stated, frowning and crossing his arms on his chest.

“Ianto, did you listen to me?”

“Yeah, and I gathered that you wanted to give us a second chance” Ianto summed up, keeping only what it mattered to him of their conversation. “If this is what you want, I will be glad to comply” He added with a smart smirk that shocked his lover.

Jack could just stare back at Ianto and hope that everything wasn’t too good to be true.

 

* * *

 

The following weeks confirmed quite a lot of Jack’s fears, but also pleasantly let the two lovers enough chances to grow back their relationship.

Jack and Ianto kept dating regularly, even after the Welshman remembered things he wasn’t so sure how to take. The worst parts of it included accepting that all those nightmares he kept having were actually shreds of his real life, and confronting Jack about Lisa’s death.

No sugar coating could be allowed this time, since now his memories were coming back as such, and he could easily understand what was his own life and what fiction.

On work related issues, Ianto had perfectly mingled back within the Torchwood staff and, with the help of Jack and Gwen, he had found his own place inside the new hub and in his new diminished routine. Rhys eventually asked for a full time job where he worked in the weekends, but, even though he had left coffee duty back to Ianto, he could sometimes be found spying on him, hoping to understand what the super secret behind his wonderful coffee was.

Ianto had been right guessing that working at the hub would give him more chances to get his memories back, but also Jack wasn’t proved wrong saying that the Welshman wouldn’t have liked most of them and that everything would change his perception of life.

The happy and easy going Ianto Jack had met lately, the one that felt no shame going out with his boyfriend hand by hand, slowly began turning again the skittish worried man Jack had learned to love despite his flaws.

Jack knew that he had to find a way to stop the reversal before it was too late, so one evening he took it upon himself to invite Ianto to have dinned out with him.

After the afternoon at the stadium, there had been very few occasions for them to enjoy something mundane, and Jack had soon noticed that the more Ianto remembered, the more he preferred a quiet evening at home o in a secluded restaurant rather than show up in a public place.

Jack knew nothing about rugby, so he decided to buy tickets for a comic show at the theatre instead, hoping to ease the mood before their dinner at one of the most romantic and public restaurants in town. Ianto had accepted the invitation, glad to enjoy the company of his lover, however it had taken him some time before finally getting comfortable in front of all those people.

Unfortunately, as soon as they were outside and Jack tried to encircle Ianto’s shoulders with his arm, he could clearly feel the Welshman shivering in discomfort and try to get away.

“Maybe we shouldn’t-” Ianto tried to explain his approach in order to not offend Jack.

“Ease up, Ianto” Jack cooed kindly, knowing what Ianto’s problem was. “No one cares anymore about two men being together”

“But-”

“No buts” Jack complained, reaching for his lover to hold him tight in his arms. “Those were only old ideas you grew up with”

Ianto nodded and tried to relax in Jack’s arms with little success.

“Will they think we’re gay?” Ianto blurted out eventually, after they bypassed a group of men talking together.

“Even if they were, what’s the problem?”

“Well, we aren’t for one”

“Does it make you feel uncomfortable?” Jack asked, heaving a deep sigh.

“I- don’t know…” Ianto admitted, currently fighting within himself to get back in the same state of mind he was in when most of his memories were gone.

“Ianto, you’re usually dressed in suits” Jack pointed out, silently glad that with the work at Torchwood magically the suits had reappeared in Ianto’s wardrobe. “People might think you work in an office even though you actually chase aliens. Does it bother you?”

“Well, it’s good if they misunderstand… I don’t have a normal work”

“And you don’t want people thinking that you don’t have a normal sexual relationship?”

Ianto glared at Jack, looking absolutely offended. “Our relationship is not wrong, and I would have no problems with us being public if people just thought that I’m in a gay relationship, but _I_ ’m not gay and neither are you”

“I don’t really care about what they think, and moreover here in the UK things are way nicer than in other places, even though people misunderstand and think you are gay”

“My memories don’t say so” Ianto protested, seriously considering how to escape Jack’s embrace without hurting the man.

“Those memories are outdated. Years passed, Ianto, and things changed way more than you could imagine. Now relax and enjoy the fresh breeze, we’ll soon get to the restaurant”

Ianto gave up and nodded again, sighing as he rested his head against Jack’s shoulder.

“Still, I can’t believe that I trusted Marion when she told me that my feelings for you weren’t a problem, there were a lot of circumstances I didn’t consider”

“She told you the truth” Jack countered, coming to the kind doctor’s rescue. “And I’m glad she told you that it’s perfectly normal liking both men and women. Besides, she is a doctor, so you should trust her way more than your old memories”

“You might be right” Ianto admitted, a small smile appearing on his lips.

“I _am_ right” Jack stated, stopping in front of the restaurant and making Ianto go inside first. “Now give me your jacket, I’ll get this sorted”

It didn’t take much for Jack and Ianto to get to the table Jack had reserved and to order their food, still the captain could notice how skittish Ianto was.

“Ianto” Jack told him eventually “Do you realise that among all these people you’re the only one feeling uncomfortable?”

“Yeah, and I’m really trying to focus on how I felt before remembering all this, but it’s still hard”

“When you remembered about Lisa, it took you less time” Jack noticed. Of all the things that had happened in Ianto’s past, Jack had bet his money on Lisa’s ordeal, but considering how things had turned out he was glad to have not finalized it with Gwen, or else he would have lost his money.

As the their good co-worker had pointed out, considering how Ianto’s recovery of his memories seemed to be linked to Jack, only something related to their relationship would have actually shocked Ianto: her money, then, were going to be on the turmoil happened during her wedding or eventually the spite showed by Clem in London. Not really sure which would be worse, they didn’t follow suit, but they both knew now that she’d been right. About both.

“Well, that was a tragic occurrence, but it’s not something that could affect the perception I have of myself…” Ianto explained, grimacing at his memories. “Ending up ridiculed and offended it’s something else entirely”

“You’re a cute man with an even cuter boyfriend, I would not let you perceive yourself any different” Jack told him as he placed a hand over Ianto’s, making him smile.

“Thank you Jack” Ianto told him, covering Jack’s hand with his own instead. “I do really love you, you know?”

These were the moments in which he felt that there was still one big gap between how Ianto was supposed to be and how Ianto actually was now. Having discovered his love for Jack _before_ being reminded about all the bad things happened in his life, still allowed him to speak about his feelings way more freely than it happened in the past. Jack did wonder, however, if it wasn’t also because he hadn’t fully recovered his memories, among which certainly missing there was the last and most important one: Thames House.

“Thank you for letting me again into your life” Jack half whispered, making Ianto’s breath to catch in his throat.

“I wouldn’t dream of anything else”

Their moment was interrupted by the waiter bringing them their orders, however, as soon as they took the first bite, both of them stole glances at their companion.

“How’s memory going?” Jack was the first to break the silence.

“I remembered some more things I think… Was my sister married?”

“Yeah, Rhiannon married Johnny way before I met you. You two had quite a love-hate relationship as far as you told me. However I don’t think is good for you to show up at the moment, we still don’t know how to explain you being back”

 _That_ was a sore point for the both of them: not being able, after all their researches, to find any lead on how Ianto had come back from the dead… Well, not that Ianto knew he was supposed to be dead in the first place, even though he had helped the best he could without uncovering the truth.

Jack hadn’t still told him about his demise, so he had sadly denied any request to see Rhiannon his lover had made. Sadly, she had _seen_ her brother dead, she had even organised the funeral herself, so there wasn’t a way to forego the fact the Ianto was dead the same way he was doing with the Welshman.

More than his death in itself, there was also the age gap to explain, another riddle about which they had no solution at hand. Worse than that, Ianto had in his hands medical references stating his age, an age that Rhiannon would quickly point out how it couldn’t match the supposedly current one of her brother. Rhiannon was a smart woman, but she needed answers, just like her own brother.

“Do you think I can go and see her after we understand what happened or I remember something useful?”

“Only if you will deem safe for her to know it. You can’t be certain now if you will be happy with her knowing whatever it is you forgot”

“I could still be a clone you mean.” Ianto said sadly, putting down his fork. “Gwen still believes it’s the only thing that could explain the age gap”

“Ianto, Gwen isn’t a scientist.” Jack reassured him. “I had you, Tosh and Owen for brain work. Besides, there are some things that help telling the difference between a clone and the original and, even though I can’t say I know every different kind of reproduction program in the universe, I’m still sure you’re not a clone. I don’t know why you two are obsessed with this explanation”

“I don’t know the answer myself, but I’m not obsessed with the chance” Ianto countered, knitting his eyebrows together. “Maybe I’m just scared that it is true”

“But it isn’t. I was thinking the other day… There’s always the chance of a temporal displacement, even though it still won’t explain other things, among them which point in time you would have been taken from”

“You never told me why ‘ _after you saw me the last time_ ’ wasn’t a good answer to your question”

 _‘Because you exploded along with the rift to seal it and at the time you were living thanks to some kind of mistake’_ Jack’s mind promptly supplied, but he knew that he would never have had the courage to say those words.

“I’ll tell you only when we get to that”

Ianto snorted and focused back on his dinner, quickly finishing the few bites he had left.

“I’ve got some cake at home, you want some?” He proposed eventually.

Jack smirked at Ianto and by the way his lover looked back at him, he’d understood very well how the cake would just be the beginning of something more. He was glad that in what was the sexual part of their relationship he had no doubt that this Ianto was his boyfriend: since their second first time, every time had been like finally coming home, diving in well known waters, dancing old familiar songs.

They had waited some time before sleeping together, more out of Jack’s reserves on the matter than for Ianto’s will to understand his lover better. Eventually however, Ianto had managed to make the captain so frustrated that he had to capitulate.

It had been pretty amazing for the both of them to have a proper first time to make up for the frenzied one they had at the beginning of their story, even though Ianto had to point out, after remembering how it had really started, that he had nothing to complain about that first time too, on contrary to Jack’s self-conscious opinion.

Yes, back then it had been awkward, because there was also Lisa on the background, and even after that they didn’t really follow the proper rules of dating… But that had been _their_ relationship, and Jack was happy to know that Ianto didn’t regret any part of it despite everything. Still, it worried him that not many things were left for Ianto to remember, and this lead his thoughts back to the fear of Ianto remembering Thames House.

Something about those days already appeared to be somewhere in Ianto’s head –like the Clem ordeal-, even though he was still putting the pieces together. Because of that, Jack was even more worried that after remembering his death everything would turn out like it had happened in the House of Dead. He feared the chance of that day happening and also the consequences on their relationship, but he knew that he couldn’t keep Ianto away from the truth… and unfortunately the truth hit Ianto way before Jack had hoped.

That night, they had gone back to Ianto’s flat and played with the cake until they were covered in chocolate. They licked each other clean, kissing and laughing and eventually having sex, only to fall asleep soon after.

When Jack woke up in the middle of the night, though, Ianto wasn’t at his side anymore.

He stood up and dressed quickly with the pyjama trousers he had never really wore for more than a couple of minutes at night, dread filling his whole being. He rushed to the kitchen and then out to the balcony, but he could see no light on.

Passing by the sofa on the living room, however, he hit someone with his leg and found with much surprise that it was his Ianto, who sat on the floor with his back to the couch, his head reclined between his legs and partially covered by his arms.

“Ianto, what are you doing here in the shade!?” Jack sat next to him and took Ianto in his arms, finding no resistance of sort. “What happened? If it was another bad dream, warm milk might-”

“I’m dead.” Ianto stated, leaving the captain speechless.

“Just a nightmare” Jack lied awkwardly, despite having promised himself he wouldn’t try to cover that up and knowing that Ianto couldn’t be fooled around easily.

“You know it’s not true.” Ianto stated, proving Jack right. “I remember the 456, the venom jamming my lungs, you crying over me and begging me to not leave you alone. I also remember you bringing me back to life in that bar.”

Now it was the definitive end. For Jack and for them as a couple. Thames House he could explain, maybe, but the House of Dead was really the end of it all, even though remembering Jack telling him that he loved him might have helped more that the silence following Ianto’s death at Thames House.

“Is it because you remembered what happened there that you are here now?” Jack asked worriedly.

“I remember… Warm golden light. The Rift.” Ianto said slowly, his eyes staring vaguely in front of himself. “Dying again. Not the slow darkness brought by the venom, but something piercing through my body- my whole soul ripped apart, then…”

“Then?” Jack asked, hoping that finally they were approaching the whereabouts of Ianto’s coming back.

“Something blue” Ianto answered, his confused eyes still staring in front of himself like he was trying to focus uncertainly on what was in front of him.

“Blue?”

“Yeah. Then… things got confused, I don’t really know how to describe it. I just know I felt confined for some time inside something, without a proper whole body, and then I was again out in the open and as soon as I was out my body regenerated... somehow”

“This… is not making any sense, Ianto” Jack countered, not understanding what kind of device could do something like that.

“I remember this place” Ianto said, standing up and approaching one of the pieces of furniture right in front of him. “There was a drawer here”

Jack moved next to Ianto to look at the same thing Ianto was staring at and, after focusing hard on what seemed thin air, finally he saw the drawer.

“Has it always been here? What’s inside?”

“I don’t know. I never noticed it myself, I just… remembered it was here and then I saw it” Ianto said dubiously.

“Can we open it?”

“I remember a voice, a male voice telling me: ‘ _Now forget Ianto Jones, forget until you give a kiss to old Jack for me’_ ” Ianto said, considering how this last piece of memory actually made him understand why kissing Jack had seemed something vital to do at the beginning of his new life as amnesiac.

“The Doctor” Jack whispered, recognizing his friend’s way of speaking, while Ianto opened the drawer and found a letter inside.

“Would you read it?” Ianto asked, his voice trembling in panic.

Jack took it from his hands and simply started reading, his voice slightly wavering from fear and emotions.

“ _I wasted two whole lives escaping truth only to understand that eventually everything wasn’t what it seemed. Then, when a little piece of paper found me, I realized that maybe it wasn’t only my life that was not what it seemed, but also yours._

_His essence found me travelling, right after his body exploded but before he lost his soul: his will to sacrifice himself was enough to close the Rift how your timeline dictated._

_Sorry for the mess with the explosions, but it was hard to get to the right time to find the explanation I needed for him being alive and then to give him back to you when it was proper. Even when I found it, I was still wary of leaving him alone and unsupervised though, so I blocked his memories until he found you and the seal would break._

_Some of the answers you’re searching for are in the sheet I left you with this letter and some of the others, I think, are just in the magic of the House of Dead._

_I wish you ‘happily ever after’ old Jack._ ”

“I didn’t understand much” Ianto admitted, but Jack was already searching inside the envelope with trembling hands for the piece of paper and the sheet mentioned.

The sheet turned out to be a medical record from Torchwood One, name: _Ianto Jones_.

“Wait, that’s not mine” Ianto countered, not recognizing the sheet as his own: he meddled in his records more than once, he knew how they looked like. Unless that was kept secret even from him?

“It’s not the one we had, but it must be yours”

“One didn’t experiment on staff, Jack” Ianto protested unsurely, but he turned more serious as he noticed Jack getting paler the more he read.

“It’s record of experiments for… Survival in the void. Looks like they were planning to send someone inside the crack they were opening with the ghost shifts”

“So?” Ianto asked, now plainly scared. “What they did to me?”

“They tried to inject you with something of me... These codes here are for some of the experiments they tried with me as a specimen” Jack explained as he kept scanning the details of the experiments to understand which one they had meddled in and noted the consequences. “They failed however, they didn’t hit immortality or survival in the void, and you ended up almost unchanged aside for some sensibility to 51st century peculiarity… I think this explains why you can smell my pheromones, at least”

“Maybe it didn’t really fail… That’s why I survived inside the rift.”

“Ianto, aside you being already dead before, the Doctor himself said that your body exploded. The only thing left was your soul”

Jack moved to read the piece of paper then: it was nothing more than a couple lines, written in Ianto’s handwriting.

“Oh God, it has today’s date on it” Ianto noticed, before widening even more his eyes as he went on to read more. “ _Our fairytale and happily ever after_? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jack, however, paled visibly and let the letter go as he rushed to the kitchen.

“Jack!? What’s up!?” Ianto called his lover, shocked by the unpredicted panic and the following rush.

“I can’t have a _happily ever after_ ” Jack stated as he came back towards Ianto with a knife in his hand. “I’m sorry, Ianto”

Ianto instinctively tried to get away, but he found himself cornered before he could put his right mind at work.

“Please, Jack, don’t!” He yelled right before closing his eyes, right before Jack breached open his arm with the knife.

Ianto whimpered at the sudden pain, but he was too shocked and surprised to do anything else than stand there frozen still, still trying to make up his mind on his lover killing him after all they did to stay together.

However, the mortal hit didn’t come. Instead, Ianto heard the sound of Jack crying in front of him. Ianto opened again his eyes and saw his lover kneeling on the floor and crying, with the knife he still held in his hand drenched in blood.

“Look at your arm” Jack told him as an explanation, and finally Ianto understood what was going on.

Ever so slowly the cut was disappearing, leaving behind only the smears of blood. After it had closed up completely, not even a scratch remained.

“How’s that possible?” Ianto asked, not really knowing what to think about the discovery.

“You exploded inside the Rift.” Jack explained. “You were supposed to lose your soul too and never have the chance to be brought back, but One… did the things right somehow, so your soul survived inside the void. It must be something peculiar to your second death. After that, probably the magic of the House of Dead was still in place and tried to bring you back… but it did it inside the Vortex. Some of it must have gotten trapped inside of you”

“So…” Ianto said, admitting that Jack’s thesis certainly had the benefit of explaining everything they had discovered until then. “Why are you crying?”

Jack looked up at Ianto not understanding what he meant, until he found the Welshman in his arms.

“I love you, Jack” Ianto told him with a smile. “It’s good that you don’t have to be alone anymore. It would have broken my heart leaving you again.”

“Ianto… You’re _damned_ like me, how can you be happy?” Jack countered, still shaking with irrational tears. “You’ve always been _sorry_ for me”

“Be damned _with_ you, you mean.” Ianto corrected him. “What’s better in life and death? Happy _ever after_ , Jack. Now you are not only the stuff of legends, but also of the fairytales.” Ianto joked, and Jack could do nothing more than keep crying in his lover’s arms. However, this time his tears were definitively of joy.

 

* * *

 

 

After a good night of sleep, Jack called Gwen to ask her to cover for both of them that day and to set up further analysis to test his last theory on Ianto’s coming back, since they had something to do. Being the current Torchwood nothing so energy draining like the one they were used to, she had no problem accepting his plead, as long as they shared with her the truth behind Ianto’s coming back.

After promising Gwen, they drove for quite some time until they found the place called Bad Wolf bay, known everywhere for its peculiar thin line between different words. If there was a place that could reach the Doctor, Jack was sure that _it_ _had_ to be that one.

“I would have never imagined for things to turn out like this” Ianto said, as Jack enveloped him in his arms.

“Me neither, but if this is the end of the fairytale, I really don’t mind it” Jack said, heaving a sigh as he enjoyed the warmth of his lover, now definitively back with him. Forever.

“It might be _happily ever after_ , Jack, but you know that’s not the end” Ianto warned him with a smirk, taking out his pocket the piece of paper that had come with the letter. “It’s only the beginning”

Jack tightened his hold on Ianto and kissed his neck and then his cheek until he finally got to his mouth. As they stood close together, lost in one another, the wind blew stronger and made Ianto lose the grip on the card, making it fly far away, over the sea and towards the sky, ready to bring them their _happily ever after_ once again.

***My Fairytale – The end***


End file.
